


they were kids that i once knew.

by saw2004



Category: Clone High
Genre: (is it unrequited? who knows ask jfk and gandhi), Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Drug Use, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Gun Violence, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, It Gets Worse, M/M, Murder, Road Trips, Survival, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:34:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 31,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26332708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saw2004/pseuds/saw2004
Summary: Instinct. Humans have always had the instinct to hunt and gather, haven’t they? Not like this. Never like this.(title is from 'dead hearts' by stars. may change in the future.)CONTENT WARNINGS: descriptions of murder, descriptions of violence, blood, gore, grief, loss of loved ones, apocalypse scenarios, death, drug use, teen angst
Comments: 50
Kudos: 134





	1. i. a pearl.

**Author's Note:**

> local adhd burnout writes fanfiction for show that came out in 2003 and wonders why the fic flopped
> 
> anyways be sure to leave a kudos it feeds my family
> 
> 5 likes and i wont give every character severe emotional trauma (thats a lie)
> 
> bully me on instagram @catheartmac

It didn’t start out that bad, Joan thinks.

She remembers being in English class, whatever book Hemmingway was assigning had long been forgotten by her as she opted to carve vague threats and angsty phrases into the front of her marble notebook. It was one of the warmer days in March, seeing as spring was finally rearing its head in their area.

She thinks it started with one of the Brontë sisters, seeing one of them ask for a bathroom hallpass. Sometimes Joan thinks that They just cloned three of the same Brontë sister and called it a day, and it makes her laugh.

She didn’t come back for at least another twenty minutes, and when she did Joan could notice just how _pale_ she looked.

She didn’t have much time to think on that, though, seeing as the bell had rung and she was already on her way to her lunch period.

On her way to the other side of the building, Joan had taken notice of something. A few other members of the student body looked just as pale as whichever Brontë that was. The blood completely flushed out of their face and was replaced with a glossy cold sweat. Some looked blue at the gills, and god Joan wished she could chalk that up to remnants of a winter flu season.

“Joooooan! ‘ey! Joan!”

Fucking fantastic.

Through the bustling of the hallways comes the form of JFK, smirk plastered on his face with half lidded hazel eyes. Joan can look as deep as she wants into them, but she can never seem to see a single gear turning behind the eyes.

“Joan, listen, my dads’re goin’ outta town fer some music thing again, so I’m throwin’ anotha’ ‘uge kegger. Except, listen, I wanna get otha’ stuff, if ya catch my meaning. Do you happen to have a, er… y’know.”

Jack makes a plugging motion. Joan rolls her eyes.

“No, Kennedy. I don’t. You could ask William Shakespeare, I know for a fact he hotboxes the light booth in the theatre with Eugene O’Neill.” She sighs.

“Ehh? Who knew theatre kids know where ta’ get the green. Buncha nerds, right? Worth a shot, Joany!”

JFK barks out a laugh and attempts to throw a hand over Joan’s shoulder. Joan stops him, only so much as threatening a punch before he flinches and pulls back.

“Pheh. Worth a shot.”

Jack trudges off, hands in his pockets as he falls back into the crowd. Joan pulls her backpack into herself a little closer and continues walking with a small scowl still etched in her face.

The cafeteria was filled with the usual bustle of teenagers cramming their way to the front of the lunch line, and Joan found the usual table in which Gandhi and Abe sat at. Gandhi had been attempting to thread a school lunch hotdog up his nose, while Abe had been holding back tears, pounding the table as his friend probably risked injuring himself shoving that up there. Joan never found it funny, only endangering.

“Joan! You’re later than usual.” Abe perks up and waves as she sat down.

“I’m here the same time as usual, dude.” She sighs. Gandhi pulls the hotdog out of his nose and waved at her.

“Joan! Check it out! It’s a gli--”

“Glizzy, I know, you did this bit last week. Listen, are you guys getting a bad vibe today-? Everything just feels… off. Sorta slow.” She remarked, hand to her chin.

“Isn’t that a thing witches feel? Are you a witch, Joan?” Abe leaned in. Joan rolled her eyes.

“Fuck around and find out. But seriously, something feels off today.”

Joan could easily chalk this up to an instinctual genetic reaction in her clone mother’s brain, some weird pull to God or whatever, but that’s a load of bull. Something felt off kilter, felt _wrong_ , from the moment she woke up today.

Abe continues giving her a funny look, while Gandhi had went back to his usual devices.

Joan swallows the feeling back into her gut and instead opts to look around the cafeteria, sharp nails drumming on the cafeteria table. A few kids lined up at the water fountain taking sips and drawing back with a cough, kids returning back to their tables with food, a few eerily still and sat quiet in the middle of people…

Yeah. Normal highschool bullshit.

Until someone vomits blood onto the table.

She doesn’t catch it at first until she hears the screaming, and a genetic clone of some far off athlete is vomiting up thick blood onto the metal table directly on the lunch, deep red and chunks of viscera splattering onto him and his cohorts.

The vomiting continues, and a few kids run out, presumably to find the nurse. Abe and Gandhi shoot up out of their seat and yell something indiscernible over the building screams of concern, and all Joan can do is watch.

Watch as blood and viscera work out of the boy’s mouth, as he twitches violently and shrieks in fear before something switches in his brain and he stalls completely, standing still before he launches at the nearest person’s neck with a newfound feral, _rabid_ speed. His eyes are glossy, pupils dull and layered over with some kind of crust or cataract.

No matter how she observes, how she puts it, it’s all the same thing.

A sick kid just attacked another student. She catches a glimpse of an artery being torn out by teeth before Gandhi shakes and pulls her.

“Joan-!! Joan, something’s definitely wrong! We- We need to go!” He yells.

All incidents of a happy go lucky Gandhi were gone, and instead replaced with pure fear.

Fear does a lot of things to people. For Joan, it makes her stall, makes her think too hard and freezes her up. It seems that, for the masses, fear has caused a mob of rampaging students to attempt to funnel through the main hallway out of the cafeteria.

Joan knows for a fact that the cafeteria is located on the ground floor. While convenient, it’s always a bitch to get to her other classes on the other floors. However, it seems to be good news for some other people. Joan can spot Cleo on the other side of the cafeteria using some kid’s bag to punch through a window pane, pulling herself through it and hopping out the other side. She spots JFK following after her before Abe decides to run.

He’s never been good at running, but perhaps it’s a good idea right now, because a Brontë sister is hissing and frothing blood-mixed spit in front of her.

Damnit. Shoulda known.

Gandhi hauls his small ass out of there, and Joan loses sight of him as soon as he’s gone, but she kicks a platform boot right into the rabid woman’s face before making a run for it. She reels back, but Joan doesn’t look back.

The funnel of students stalls as soon as Joan gets to the back, spotting Abe and thankfully Gandhi not too far in front of her.

Above the screaming, floating through the noise like some cursed melody, is ragged, gurgled groaning. Joan spots an arm being flung in the air before it hits her.

There’s infected in the front of the line.

They’re picking off students like farm animals to a fucking slaughterhouse.

The window option doesn’t seem half bad.

Joan weaves her way through a few students before grabbing ahold of Abe’s wrist and yanking him, and by proxy Gandhi, out of the crowd.

“Window. Now.” She heaves.

Before she hears a response, she runs to the nearest window and bunches up her sleeve to elbow the window. It takes a few tries, but she busts through and brushes glass off her arm. The rest is punched out to make a sizeable hole and she slips through.

It’s only about half a foot to drop into the campus grass, and she hops down in preparation to catch someone (most likely Gandhi).

Speaking of, the smaller boy wiggles out of the window and kicks his legs out as he drops into Joan’s arms. He’s dropped to the grass, and Abe slinks out without assistance.

The three of them are huffing with effort for a few seconds before Abe speaks up.

“...So- what do we do?” He asks.

Joan has to think about this. People have suddenly gone mad, attacking others like wild dogs. It’s only just a few of them, right? Right?

Dead fucking wrong.

Joan can spot at least fifteen other people out near the other side of the campus, all in various stages of writhing and vomiting blood and feral behavior. What’s really the icing on the cake though, is that someone’s corpse is being eaten by at least two of these rabids.

So this is definitely a problem.

Joan looks to Abe and Gandhi, both generally concerned and scared for their lives.

“...This is some kind of- of sickness, or infection, or something. I spotted one of the Brontë sisters all pale and sweaty, and no more than like- thirty minutes later, she’s snapping and foaming at the mouth. People are getting sick, and- and then they just shut down and go crazy.” Her voice shakes.

“We need to split up. I- I know this isn’t a good idea, but we need to cover more ground. Maybe keep people safe, or find some kinda shelter in case this is airborne or something, or--”

Oh god. Her dad. Their parents.

“I’m gonna go home and see if- if Toots is okay. You guys should head home as soon as you can to see if your parents are sick.”

The fact that she doesn’t know _how_ people are getting sick is tearing her up. Is this some kind of fungus? A result of being cloned? Is this a risk for every clone? Could she be next? Could she-

“Joan? You’re crying.” Gandhi mutters.

“I’m _fine_. I’m heading home. Keep yourself safe, and find a weapon in case someone sick tries tearing your neck open or something.” She snaps.

Before she can hear anything else from them, she turns on her heels.

The group of rabids she had noted earlier seem to be occupied, yet she keeps a steady eye on them even as she steps foot off the campus.

Attention is the one thing you don’t want to grab when you risk being hunted down by some feral diseased kid trying to eat your throat. Cars are a no go, and so she walks. Luckily, her avenue in the rows of cookie cutter houses that surround the school is closer to the school itself.

It would normally take her at least ten minutes to walk to her house at a normal pace.

However, what really speeds her up is one house in particular she passes.

It’s a cookie cutter house, as expected, pristine and normal. And yet, the door is open. It’s open, the house inside is dark, and the only evidence something truly bad happened was a singular red handprint on the door.

God. What if there’s more of them than just the ones at the school?

Joan picks up the pace and ignores a nearby puddle of blood and viscera chunks.

It’s reached their parents.

Joan tries not to think about it.

Her mind is cluttered by the time she reaches her porch, and quietly, a shaky hand knocks on her door.

“Toots-? You okay? Hello?”

She rattles the door handle. It’s unlocked.

She pushes open the door, wood heavy against her palm, and the first thing that hits her is that it’s dark,

and it smells of copper.

It’s dark in here, too. Just like that one house. The lightswitch on the wall doesn’t work, the clicking echoing in the room.

“Toots..?” She brings her voice to a low whisper.

With the only light being the mid-afternoon sun, it wasn’t entirely difficult to navigate into the living room. No discernible human shapes.

An idea flashes in her head and she looks down at herself. With deciding what belt to wear today, she had chosen one with spikes. Joan quickly wrestled with her belt to slip it off and wrapping it around her dominant hand in a mock spiked glove.

A house with no power, no life, no answers… it didn’t look good.

Joan made her way to the dining room next, the chairs still kept in place from last night. No puddles of blood, no creatures hiding under the table.

It was when she made it into the kitchen that she had found... Half of someone.

Half of a man torn to pieces, legs missing entirely from his torso. The thick puddle of blood shone nearly black with the lack of substantial light, and the smell, god the _smell_ , of bile and copper, it made her sick.

Blood streaked out of the kitchen and into a hallway, and Joan carried herself on shaky legs out to the hallway, following the streak to the back door. There, the door was cracked open, just about a couple inches. A few bloody handprints decorated the floor, as if someone crawled out on their hands and feet. 

Joan approached the door, breath hitched as only then did her eyes start to grow hot with tears.

There was garbled, choked groaning and the sick crunching of bones against teeth.

Slowly, slowly,

Joan looked through the crack.

One of those rabid fuckers was chewing into the bottom half of him.

She couldn’t even look at it.

She turned back away from the door, swallowing thickly and retreating quietly,

and failed to take into account a stray umbrella stand propped in the hallway.

It was only a slight knock, something that made it rock in place.

But that was just enough, just enough noise for the creature outside to stop its meal.

No noise. Silence. Joan could hear her heart stop and start again.

It felt like days, months, eons, but the crunching and groaning continued, the beastly person outside ignoring the noise.

She had to wait until that thing was gone. She couldn’t get things safely while it was here. She made her way out of the house, moving inch by inch off the patio before collapsing to the concrete into a fit of quiet tears.

It was painful, it fucking hurt, and by god she would never be able to get the smell out of her memory.

It took him. It fucking took him.

And that stings in a way she never possibly imagined. She thought maybe old age, or some freak accident, but never getting eviscerated by someone she can’t even consider human at this point.

Her ribcage hurts, and her arms ache, and why does everything hurt when you get so _sad_.

It took him. It took him, it ripped him apart, he’s gone, just right in front of her _fucking eyes_ \--

Her phone buzzes. She reaches for her back pocket to pull it out, heaving as hot tears continue to roll off her face in waves that make her cheeks hurt.

Texts from Abe. Not exactly the best option right now, but she’ll take what she can get.

‘Joan its abe’

‘Cleos safe thank god i found her at her house’

‘Shes really upset right now because she lost sight of jfk and i need to be here to comfort her’

‘Can you see if he had ran home because she doesnt know where he is and hes not answering his cell’

‘Gandhis here too btw hes alive’

She sniffles. Great.

Pull it together, Of Arc. You have a himbo to rescue potentially.

Despite every emotional muscle in her body saying otherwise, Joan moves from her spot, still heaving and wiping tears off her face.

Everything fucking hurts. But she’s gotta make things better.

She swallows everything down and starts moving, eyes peeled.

Jack lives a few streets down. Cutting through backyards is a bad idea, given that there could be other things like the one in her backyard. Staying directly out in the street doesn’t seem smart either.

She opts to keep closer to the houses as she trudges down the street.

It takes a little bit longer than she would have liked, but she spots the familiar blue tinted paint job of the Kennedy residence and stops in front of it.

Pushing down whatever grief was still in her, she slowly headed up the porch.

His van was parked in front of the house, which was a good sign of life.

The door, however, was slightly open, which chilled Joan to her spine once more.

She approached the door, pushing it open with a wary glance behind her.

“JFK-? Jack? Kennedy? Cleo’s worried about you, are you okay? Ja--”

The thing that hits her first is the sheer amount of blood.

It’s splattered against the staircase, against the walls, against a portrait hung showcasing the younger athlete with his dads.

Joan could spot blood in their living room, blood streaked in the carpet, and-

oh.

There’s JFK.

Stood hunched in on himself, shaking, holding… something.

“...Jack?”

Reluctantly, Joan approached him.

She’s never really heard him cry before. The closest she’d heard him cry was when he was wheeled off in an ambulance for falling through the gym roof. Even then, it was more delusional wailing than crying.

But this was crying.

He’s shaking, legs threatening to buckle. It’s then that Joan notices the bat he’s holding.

“J-Joan- Joan--”

His breathing is shaky as he inhales, blocked up by tears as he makes a pathetic wail of a sob.

Joan notices blood smeared on his sneakers.

“Joan, I- I didn’t wanna, I didn’t wanna do it, Joan- p-please-”

She didn’t want to touch him. Not in that state. She slowly moved herself in order to face him, careful of his boundaries.

“They- Joan, they- were gonna bite me, gonna eat me, Joan- please, I didn’t wanna-”

There’s so much blood on his face. It’s in his hair, his pompadour coming undone as blood caked curls stuck to his face, it’s smeared all over the bat and the front of his chest.

“I had’ta- they woulda hurt me-”

His stare is vacant. It’s hollow, his eyes wide in shock. There’s so much blood on his face.

“...Jack–”

He drops the bat. It hits the carpet, and his fingers tremble.

“It’s in the tap water, Joan. There- There was a glass in the kitchen right by- by the sink and a bottle of- of painkillers. It’s in the water.” His voice shakes and cracks, but his face remains blank.

There’s so much blood on his face.

Joan reels back and inhales sharply through her teeth as her eyes travel down to the floor. Infected bodies.

“Oh, Jack…” She murmurs.

She snakes a hesitant hand up and pats his back. He flinches, but his shaking picks up. He just looks… terrified. His hand raises to pull her hand off him, hovering over it before instead wiping a cheek of still warm blood.

“I- kept sayin’ sorry.” His voice is weak, and Joan thinks he might collapse on the spot.

“Hey, listen, maybe you shouldn’t be- um, looking at this-”

“I think the neighbors heard my wailin’. You think they’re dead too, Joan?”

“Jack–”

“I- I mean- y’know, Joan, not everyday ya up and see zombies, crazy world we live in, right? Right-”

“JACK.”

JFK jumps and finally turns to look at Joan.

“...Cleo was- worried about you. We should get you outta here.” Her voice dips lower. He’s unresponsive.

“Do you have weapons around here?” Quiet. Calm. Like talking to a child. Jack nods.

“...Gun. There’s a real shotgun in there, in m-my room- closet, somewhere. Dunno how many shells.” He wheezes.

Joan redirects the jock’s shaking body to the couch, who’s stiff and shaken. Joan watches as he brings his head to his hands before leaving to check his upstairs bedroom. She’s quiet, watching as the blood stains thin out the farther she heads upstairs. JFK’s room has a significant amount of signs and notes on it, possibly left from his childhood, seeing as a seventeen year old wouldn’t have a ‘NO GIRLS ALLOWED’ sign hammered into his door.

The door’s unlocked, and she steps in from wood floor to carpet. The room’s disheveled, but has the odd sort of organization in chaos that you could expect from a teenager. Joan spots a shelf lined with trophies and photos of a younger JFK. There’s one of him at a little league game, one of a proper photoshoot with him and his dads, one of him holding some autographed football…

He looks happy. Not sleazy, or some jerkish asshole, just happy.

The closet is a few paces away, and Joan cracks it open. Some clothes are hung, others are on the floor, but Joan can spot the dark barrel of a shotgun poking out from the back. Joan reaches in and carefully pulls it out, inspecting it. It’s unloaded, thankfully, and it looks unused. She digs in further to look for shells, and remarkably, finds two small, unopened boxes of shotgun shells sat in the back corner. It almost makes her wonder why they’re even here, if they wouldn’t be touched.

She props the shotgun up on her shoulder as she clutches the boxes, heading out of his room with a still needed caution.

When she makes her way down to Jack, his head is still in his hands as his body was wracked with small sobs. A step creaks under Joan and he shoots up, quickly attempting to cover and wipe his face.

“Er- ya found it..?” He asks, voice quiet.

“Yeah, stuck in the back. Why do you have it if you don’t even use it?”

“...Pop said to keep it in my room in case someone broke in ‘er somethin’. I nev’a wanted to use it. Gun noises always freak me out, makes me feel sick.”

Joan goes to open her mouth, but decides against it. She knows how he feels, though, comes with the paperwork of being a clone. She can’t even be near something as small as campfires without panicking.

“...Oh. Well- we have to defend ourselves right now, okay? You hold onto that bat, and we’ll take your van to go and find Abe. He- found Cleo, and she’s safe.”

Hoping the news of his exgirlfriend-slash-friend-slash-occasionalhookup would have brought him into a bright vigor, it only flashed hesitance in his face before he stood up.

“Grab what ya can in the kitchen. Nothin’ from the tap water. I’ll check the shed outside fer some heavy duty shit.”

JFK reluctantly grabs the bat from the floor, dragging it along as he trudged to the house’s back door. Joan found her way to the kitchen, and finding that the situation here didn’t look that much better than it was in the living room.

There was that familiar thick puddle of blood and viscera lumps splattered in the sink, some offshooting blood splashing to the counter and dripping its way to the kitchen floor in rhythmic pats against the tile.

She opens the refrigerator and, thankfully, no food’s actually spoiled. It had probably been at least a couple hours without power to the homes, meaning there was hopefully little to go bad. If Joan had known anything from zombie apocalypse scenarios, though, it’s not to have the majority of your foodstock be perishables. She grabs what she can and piles it onto a less bloody section of the kitchen counter, moving her way to check cabinets and shelves for cans.

It felt like running away from home. That’s what they were doing, right? Running? She tries not to think about it, swallows it down, but they’re running. The only thing Joan could hope is that this is only contained to Exclamation.

After piling a sensible amount of food onto the counter, something briefly stops her as a harsh, wet thud hits something in the backyard. Her heart practically drops into her stomach, and she hurried to the back door, swinging it open and clutching JFK’s shotgun.

Jack looked fine, for the most part. Still covered in blood and still filled with that grief induced hollowness, but what could only be considered abnormal is the body of some unidentifiable person sat a foot away from him, head beaten to a brain filled pulp. His breath is heavy and ragged and his eyes are wide as he clutches the bat up above his head, ready to swing down again.

Joan spots the chunks of brain and blood stuck to the bat and nearly gags, but motions for JFK to lower the bat.

“...It jumped from tha’ bush.” He explains, bat dropping to his side.

“Oh. Um. Well, I- raided the kitchen, got what I could. Was gonna load it in a trash bag and stick it in your trunk or something.” She jabs a finger towards the door, and he nods.

After wiping the bat on the grass to rid it of the infected blood and brain matter, Jack quickly followed Joan inside and watched as she piled the foodstock into the bag with as careful organization as she could manage. The athlete heads back outside, avoidant of the corpse as he nears the open shed and comes back with an armsful of supplies, most notably him cradling a chainsaw like it weighed nothing.

She finishes loading up the trash bag and pulls the straps of it over her shoulder when her phone buzzes again.

‘Joan its gandhi you need to get here right fucking now urgent urgent oh mygofd’

That makes her stomach twist into knots.

“...JFK-? We- We need to go, right fucking now.” Her gaze is steely and cuts right into the boy.

“Grab your keys.”

Without another word, Joan left with shotgun and foodstock in hand, hauling ass out of the front door.

The situation outside hadn’t gotten much better. If anything, it was worse.

Infected people were hunched on the ground, hobbling aimlessly, or simply eating the poor souls they disemboweled on the concrete. Luckily enough, they hadn’t picked up on Joan as she creeped to the van and plastered herself against the door facing away from the street.

They had, however, noticed JFK and the sound of his converse hitting the concrete. A few of the infected picked their heads up, eyes welled full of crust and thick, viscous blood, and leered at the athlete with a blind hungry instinct.

Instinct. Humans have always had the instinct to hunt and gather, haven’t they? Not like this. Never like this.

One lifts its head and shrieks, hunched as its arms hang in front of its body. JFK shakily unlocks the car, the van beeping and only stunting their success. More were aware of them, more were beginning to stalk forward.

Joan spotted one from farther away beginning to run.

Quickly, Joan had the sliding van door open as she threw the foodstock into the passenger seat, holding the shotgun and its shells like a lifeline, shooting Jack a look one can only describe as pure, unfiltered dread.

“I’ll drive, get in the fucking car-!!”

Jack inhaled sharply and tossed the shed supplies on the floor of his van, throwing the door shut and climbing into the passenger seat. Joan almost slid over the hood of the car, scrambling to the front seat and locking her door. Jack passed the keys to Joan, eyes wide with terror as tears threatened to streak through the dried blood on his face.

Joan had never stepped on a gas pedal that hard in her life, but when the gear stick was shifted into drive, the van jerked back as the woman floored it into the street.

The shrieks and raw gurgling of the infected outside were drowned by the squeal of the tires as the van was driven out of the area. Jack had his hand clutched tight to the grab handle of the passenger seat door, in no other state than shock. Joan passed him a glance and he released the handle, slowly putting his hands down.

“You, er uh, gunned it pretty hard.” He breathed.

Joan couldn’t offer him a reply, instead giving him an uneasy smile that read as someone on the verge of breaking. Unfortunately for her, she was, but it wasn’t as if she would just say that.

Within minutes, they had reached the school, now vacant of panicked students, save for the poor few being devoured.

There, at the front of the campus, was Abe, Gandhi and Cleo. Fortunately, the three hadn’t looked too worse for wear. Cleo was armed with a large shard of glass, the only sign of alarm being the blood splattered against her heels. Gandhi was mostly occupied with holding up Abe, a task near impossible due to the height difference. Abe looked to be in the worse shape, arms full of supplies from the nurse’s office. Needed supplies, but in exchange,

his pant leg was rolled up, and Joan could only assume the worst of what was under the bandaging on his calf.

The van was unlocked and Gandhi ushered the two in front of him into the van before hopping in himself.

As soon as the door was locked and Joan sped off, the bickering started.

“...Listen, guys, I know you’re still-”

“-mad at you? Of fucking course we’re mad at you-!!”

“Abe, it really wasn’t worth it–”

“Yes it was-! I’m a hero, Gandhi, and–”

“Abe, don’t be fucking stupid, that kid died ten minutes later! And in return, you fucking–”

“I know it looks bad, but–”

“Shut up, oh my gaaaaaaah’d-!!” Jack shrieked, clutching his ears.

“What the _hell_ did the lanky knucklehead do-?! Yer gonna make my brain fuckin’ burst with that arguin’!”

The van drew to a silence as Gandhi’s gaze slowly dipped to the bandage around Abe’s leg. Joan pulls onto another street, trying to ignore the worried quiet in the van.

There, Gandhi reaches to pull the bandage off his friend’s legs, and–

Joan can see an angry red bite mark on his right calf, dribbling the same thick, viscous blood spotted on the other infected. She swallows thickly as a thought crosses her mind and, oddly enough, Cleo voices it for her.

“We need to cut your leg off.” She says sternly.

“What-?! This isn’t some zombie apocalypse movie, you don’t know if that’ll even fucking work!” He yells, scrambling backwards into his seat.

“It’s the only option we have right now-!! You saw that kid in the hall? You fucking saw Bob Ross bite right into him, and no more than ten minutes later he was writhing and frothing and _bleeding everywhere_ –”

“Okay! Okay, I get it.” Abe sucks in a breath, pinching the bridge of his nose.

The van goes quiet until JFK speaks up.

“...There’s- ah- a hacksaw. On that pile on tha’ floor.” He’s quiet when he says that, mumbling into his hand as if he doesn’t want to say it at all.

Joan can hear metal clanging in the back and whimpering from Abe, along with the low comforting whispers Gandhi attempts to offer his friend.

Joan quickly spots a glance at Jack again, and his hand is propped in his chin against the windowsill of the car, body tense and jaw clenched as he listens to the soon to be gut wrenching commotion in the backseat.

Joan’s breath comes out shaky as Gandhi’s low whispers became drowned out by Abe’s panicked blubbering. Cleo mumbles an apology as some shuffling is heard, as metal teeth meet flesh, cutting and tearing, Abe is screaming–

It’s all a blur. And all Joan can do is drive

  
  


—

  
  
  


That was a month ago.

Joan’s sat outside of the van, leaning against the passenger side van door and staring into the plains outside. The van’s parked to the side of a long stretch of road, from which Joan couldn’t see the beginning or end of.

It’s funny, how she never imagined this is what would be outside Exclamation. All plains, poorly managed gas stations, and the occasional skyline of suburban houses.

She doesn’t know what time it is, but it’s late, and the stars are sat in the sky, staring down at Joan with some sort of disapproving look. Was it disapproving? Maybe she just thinks it’s disapproval. She’s gotten that a lot in her life, anyways.

Stars are more Jack’s thing. He’s had a thing for them lately, but Joan knows that he would drag his parents out at night to stargaze. She knows that the inside of his school locker, next to athletic achievements and school textbooks, are maps of constellations and stickers of planets. She knows that him and Ponce did a project on the planetary system in middle school, and Jack wanted to do all the work. He won’t stop talking to her if it means he doesn’t have to sit in silence.

The apocalypse can make you say the weirdest things to people if it means you get to bond with, potentially, someone who’ll die the next day.

Joan’s taken a liking to calling this an apocalypse.

She’s heard through some backwater radio channels that this infection had reached the east, hearing that this same infection had begun to ravage European countries.

What else do you call it? A pandemic? Some biowarfare gone wrong? Maybe the same crackpots that officiated the cloning of her and her friends decided it would be a great idea to unleash chemical warfare.

The stars glare at her and she rubs her temples, peeking back into the van’s window. The silhouette of Gandhi is resting in JFK’s lap in the passenger seat, and the latter actually seems to be sleeping as well. Good, Joan thinks, he needs it. She’s seen him collapse after about two and a half days of exhaustion.

Cleo’s resting in the backseat, face against the windowsill and balled in on herself as Abe greedily stretched himself out on the rest of the space of the seat. Joan eyes up the stump of his leg and cringes. Gandhi needs to change the bandaging in the morning.

Joan herself didn’t plan on sleeping. Some deep pit in her chest told her, screamed at her that she didn’t need it, didn’t deserve it.

Some days it would suck her in, leave her stripped of everything. She would let JFK drive, let him refuel the van, and it made her feel awful. Everyone has bad days, right? Why won’t she let herself have one?

She can’t have a bad day. Not right now. They need her. Her friends need her.

And yet, what’s their end goal? What’ll happen if they just give up? They’ve been doing fine, they’ve been living as best as they can, and all Joan can think of is _what the fuck is she living for_ –

There’s a small knock from the inside of the van and Joan nearly jumps out of her fucking skin, whipping around.

JFK’s looking up at her, eyes half lidded with sleep as his face is etched with concern. One of his hands is kept cradling Gandhi’s sleeping form, and the other’s still hovered by the window. His eyes flick back to the driver’s seat, then back to Joan, then back to the driver’s seat.

Ah.

A hand is kept against the car as she trudges around to the other side of the van, opening the door with as little noise as she can manage before hopping inside.

She offers a tired glance to Jack, who only gives her the best smile he can manage while half asleep.

“...Yer gonna drop dead if ya don’t rest, Joany.”

Joan hates nicknames. Jack makes it sound better when it comes from him.

“I know. I’m just- thinking, is all.” She mumbles, resting her head against the window.

“Thinking as in strategy fer tomorra’? Or thinking as in yer down in the dumps.” He sighs.

“...Yeah.”

“That doesn’t answer my- whateva’.” Jack rolls his eyes.

They sit like that. In silence, staring out their respective windows and sinking deep into their heads. 

Joan catches a glimpse of herself in her reflection, and grimaces not just at the bags under her eyes, but at the fading of her hair color. You learn to not care about that stuff in the apocalypse, but brown roots against pink irks her.

“...The color’s fading out. That sucks.” She brings up.

It’s better to get out of your head once in a while, anyways.

Jack only scoffs, absentmindedly kneading soft circles into Gandhi’s back.

“It ain’t that bad. I kinda dig it, anyways, makes ya look- er- hardcore ‘r somethin’.”

“Yeah. At least I’m not growing a mullet.” She laughs.

“Oi, you can’t find good product fer shit nowadays, Joan. I’m in so much pain. Agony, Joany, agony.” He sighs, flopping his head against the headrest in a display of overdramatics.

As much as he can be, well, himself, Joan finds an odd comfort in small talk with Jack like this. It feels real, it’s not her to herself, lost in her own mind, her guilt, her regret, it just feels normal.

Normal. All she wants is normal. Normal never came with being a clone, but at least the sliver of normalcy they had didn’t involve this cold hellscape.

“...Go to sleep, John.” She hides her smile in her palm.

“Oh, sayin’ the big boy name? I see how it is.” He mock pouts before smiling.

“A’ight. I’ll try if you try, okay? You get some rest first.” His free hand reaches to tousle Joan’s hair before he hugs Gandhi just a little closer and shuts his eyes, resting his chin on the smaller’s head.

Joan only smiles at him when she’s sure he’s drifted off, when his breath evens and his head lulls just a little to the side.

Joan turns in on herself with a deep sigh. Her eyes glance at the stars through her window one last time before shutting her eyes and attempting to drift off.

Right on the cusp of sleep, Joan finally thinks of an end point. Something that has to keep her going to the time being. Journeys don’t need to have physical end points, right?

Which is why Joan decides on staying human being her end point. No matter what. Stay human, even to the end. Even if it’s just feeling like a person, feeling things, emotions, the blood thrumming in her ears, all she needs is to be human. Never will she become the infection that took her foster parent, that took so much in only a month.

That could work, she thinks. Stay human. Stay alive.


	2. ii. why didn't you stop me?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hope. That’s all there really is anymore, right? Joan’s tried praying before. She only does it when there’s nothing left to do, to bow her head and just pray that something answers. Maybe the original her was onto something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> throw things at me on ig @catheartmac
> 
> feel free to make fanart of this fic or something u dont have to ask me lol

It’s five days after the initial outbreak.

Joan’s sat behind the wheel in some far off gas station a few towns out from Exclamation. The air’s heavy in the van as she rests her head against the steering wheel. They had been lucky driving down this backwater road, finding this area touched by nothing but hysteria to leave in fear. It was in one of those areas where it certainly had people living here, but the houses were falling apart, or lawns were overgrown, and with the recent infection it felt abandoned. The gas station was small, paint worn off by years of age and beatings from rain. Joan can spot weeds growing out of the cracks in the asphalt, shriveled and crawling up the walls of the establishment.

Cleo had suggested it at first. When pulling into the broken street of the ghost town, she had spotted a few abandoned cars pulled off to the side, some with doors wide open, others with cracked windshields that eerily could fit a human inside– or rather, be wide enough to pull a human out of.

It’s not illegal to steal gasoline if, presumably, all the cops are dead, right? Right.

Joan’s pulled into the parking lot next to the gas station, unlocking the doors with hesitance as she keeps an ear out while the van doors slowly open. Abe is out cold, practically on and off comatose in the back of the van. The seats in the far back were put down and flattened, courtesy of Jack, and he had taken the liberty of laying down towels to keep blood from staining the van’s carpet. Considerate.

One pause later and Joan’s out of the van, clutching the shotgun.

Gandhi stayed put, hovering over Abe’s sleeping form in the back with a cold rag and a slowly melting baggie of ice. Joan gives him a look of sympathy through the tinted window.

Cleo follows Joan out slowly, pressing herself to the side of the van before deeming it safe. Joan can spot her looking at her, before turning her head back and masking the concern with an unreadable expression. Jack steps out last, stiff and absentmindedly dragging his fingers along the side of the van, bat trailing behind him and scraping along the asphalt of the parking lot.

“Kennedy, check inside the store for gas cans or something. Maybe food, or- hopefully water. Cleo and I can check out here. You’ll be fine, right?” Joan asks warily, voice hushed.

Jack nods, and he’s off within the second.

You learn a few things about the undead when your life's on the line at every waking moment.

One, these things are alerted to noise. Smell, not so much, but raise your voice enough and a whole hoard comes rampaging your way.

Two, they can barely see five feet in front of them. Not in the dark, not in the middle of the afternoon, not a bright light to guide them, nothing. They develop some crust, a thick film around their eyes, and bumble around like idiots until some poor soul decides to talk a bit too loud. 

Three, they’re unnaturally durable. They run too fast, snap their frothing jaws too hard, and it freaks Joan out. Sometimes their ribs jut out too far, their bones point out in weird ways, contorted and spindly and _hungry_.

Four, bites infect people. It’s something in the saliva that gets into the brain, probably. Makes you have seizures, makes you puke blood, gives you fevers, something. It’s a wonder Abe hasn’t shown any symptoms yet, but maybe they got it early enough when they sawed his leg off from below the knee down. They hope, at least.

Hope. That’s all there really is anymore, right? Joan’s tried praying before. She only does it when there’s nothing left to do, to bow her head and just pray that something answers. Maybe the original her was onto something.

Cleo calls her over in a harsh whisper as she inspects an abandoned pickup truck smeared with bloody handprints. From somewhere, she had found two gas cans and was in the process of filling one up. Joan hurriedly rushes to the girl’s side to aid in the illegal endeavor, looking up every so often to scan the area.

“...Hey.”

She actually wants to talk to her. Huh.

“Hey.”

“...”

That same expression of concern spreads across Cleo’s face as she looks up from the gas can to Joan. It’s not as prevalent, but Joan can see it briefly before she returns to an apathetic gaze.

“Um- if you, I guess, want me to drive or something, after this, then I can do it. Or whatever. You look ugly when you get tired. I’m just looking out for you on that part.” She scoffs.

Something briefly grips Joan’s heart with annoyance before she stops, reconsiders, and shakes her head with a light huff.

“Wow, alright. Finally, someone else gets to deal with Kennedy’s passenger-seat driving. If you’re gonna be nice, will you carry these back to the van when we’re done?” She bites back, malice nowhere to be felt as she smirks.

“Don’t push it, Of Arc. I’m doing the bare minimum here. I don’t want the only other girl in this group looking tired and ugly, is all.” She cooes.

“That makes it sound like you care about me, Cleo. Are my ears deceiving me, or have you finally learned what compassion is?” Joan chuckles.

“Heavens no, I’m only doing what I would do in your situation. Take a break and stop playing leader for a second.”

She does have a point. Joan’s first instinct was to take up the cross of keeping people in line, and for what? She could have easily stayed. She could have sat by her foster parent’s body and waited, waited for something to come take her. She could have left Jack where he was standing, she could have stayed at the school and let herself get eaten by those _things_ –

Why did she put herself here?

She doesn’t have a lot of time to think on that, though, because the crunching of gravel in the street has her stiffening to a halt.

She catches a glimpse of the tail end of a black car slowly, slowly driving behind the gas station, near out of view from Joan and Cleo. It’s not enough to alarm her just yet, and it doesn’t seem to have alerted any undead.

That’s when she starts getting just a tad bit excited. Survivors, other people, _other people alive_ …

Though, the dread of encountering someone hostile settles in her stomach and ties it in knots. Cleo nudges her.

“Are you going to keep staring? That gives me a bad feeling. I don’t feel like getting jumped, can you go get JFK? I’ll carry the gas cans back, I guess, since I’m so nice.”

Cleo’s face is blank for a second until her lips twitch upward in a maybe-conceited smile. Joan rolls her eyes, standing up slowly and pulling her shotgun up to her shoulders.

“Aren’t you a saint, Cleo.” Her eyes are on the inside of the building.

“Oh, I am. You might as well start praying, Joan.”

Cleo looks back down to the gas cans and caps the second can, pulling them up and carrying them back to the trunk of the van with, surprisingly, an ease Joan wouldn’t have expected out of the queen bee.

Stray rocks and gravel crunch quietly under her boots as she moves to the convenience store attached to the outside gas station. She stops, however, as a sudden thud and the crack of glass from inside makes her freeze up.

A quick look around. Nothing alerted. She continues, switching the safety off from the shotgun.

Another thud. There’s people arguing from inside. People.

God fucking dammit, of course they’re hostile.

She scoots underneath the windows of the establishment, shotgun close to her as yelling begins to pick up. Peeking up slightly and peering into the dusty windows, she holds her breath at the sight.

At least three people, one tall man and two others, looked like they tore the place to shreds. Jack was sat by a glass cooler display door, cradling a bloody nose, among other injuries obtained in some kind of scuffle. One of these strangers had a pistol aimed for his head while the two other raiders stuffed what essentials they could into ragged duffel bags and plastic bags. Jack had his eyes trained at the floor as to not look down the barrel of the gun. The employee’s only door was swung open, revealing the black car in the back.

Shooting through the window would be bad news, unfortunate seeing as that was her first train of thought.

Her second train of thought, while reckless, eventually pushed her to act.

Joan swung the door of the convenience store open, shotgun lowered.

The raiders turned to look at her with alarm and shock-disguised-rage.

“What th’ fuck– you fucking said there was nobody else here, boy-!!” The one with the gun pointed at Jack squealed, spinning the pistol around and hitting him with the butt of the gun.

Joan’s throat tightens and she glares at the man. He had his own fair share of beatdown displayed on his face, blood trickling down his forehead in a thin line with other blossoming bruises. The other two sported similar injuries. Jack must have given them trouble before anything else happened. Good for him.

Joan, however, could not speak to anything. All she did was stare, finger gracing the trigger of the shotgun.

“...Girlie, you best get on yer way. We don’t mean any trouble unless someone starts firin’. You don’t want that, do you? I’m sure I don’t wanna waste my bullets, and neither do you.” His voice is smooth, with few licks of some kind of country accent.

Joan doesn’t budge.

“We got here first, dipshit. F-Find your own gas station.” She breathes.

One of the other raiders burst out in short fits of cackles, smacking their knee.

“Look at that! Some little highschool pipsqueak tryna play tough! I doubt that shotgun’s loaded, too. You got a parent I can speak to about this, eh?” They snort.

Joan eyes the two up, then the one by the cooler display door. Jack briefly looks up at her before squeezing his eyes shut.

God damnit. God fucking damnit.

Thank whoever she remembered to take the safety off.

Joan cocks and fires the shotgun off, hitting the raider by Jack square in the back. They stumble forwards, then backwards, before falling into a half empty shelf of store goods. The pistol drops to the floor.

Good god, did she just fucking murder someone? First time for everything, she thinks bitterly, as the empty shell falls to the floor.

The other two raiders react, practically falling over themselves to look for weapons. Joan’s already loading in another shell as Jack sits himself, feeling around for his bat before launching himself at the man.

Joan briefly looks back at the raider she shot, blood draining out of their mouth and back. She swallows back bile as she strides over and kicks the pistol towards her own person for safety concerns.

By the time she has the shotgun aimed up towards the other raiders, Jack has the man on the ground bleeding profusely out the nose, and the other backed into a corner with a shaking hand swiping outward with a hunting knife. She’s almost impressed.

Using this opportunity, she rummaged through the cooler displays for water. Most of it had already been emptied, assumedly by others, but Joan eventually found a lukewarm twenty-four pack of miniature water bottles. Combined with the water they had left… it’ll work out. 

Joan looks back over her shoulder to find the remaining raider on the floor, hopefully unconscious, though it seems that in turn Jack had gotten an unfortunate stab to the forearm. Blood soaked through his already dirtied sweater, and he opts to pull the thing off to stop the bleeding.

Joan adjusts the water bottle pack to hold it underneath her arm, switching the safety back onto the shotgun as she rushes to hold Jack upright.

“Jack, we gotta go,” Joan looks up to see his eyes go glassy with exhaustion, “we can get Gandhi to fix you up, okay? Come on buddy.”

He lets out a breathy sound of agreement as Joan helps him limp to the door. It’s pushed open and the pair make their way to the van.

“Joan– shouldn’t we– get their stuff, or take their car or– something,” He wheezes, head lolled to the side as lines of blood trickle down from his swollen nose.

“Don’t worry about that, good fucking lord! You look like you got hit by a semi truck, we are–”

Groaning starts to sound somewhere in the distance.

“–leaving.”

She shouldn’t have fired the gun.

They pick up the pace and Joan swings the trunk door open, Jack limp at her side as he barely holds himself up. Abe had woken up in their absence, and Gandhi was going through a bag of something when he jolted in his spot.

“Took you dudes long enough, y– holy shit, Jack!” He yelps.

That sets him into a frantic state, tugging Jack into the back as Joan throws the water in the back and slams the trunk door.

“What the hell went on in there, JFK-? You didn’t get bit, right? Did you win, at least? Tell me you won, dude, because that’s sick, hey your arm’s bleeding-!! Do you have a concussion, tell me what hurts–”

“G-God, short stack, shut up an’ help me already!”

The car shakes and peels out into the street, and Jack is briefly knocked backwards into the wall of the car with a grunt.

Gandhi pulls whatever medical supplies he can find out of various crevices in the back of the van, piling gauze, bandages, and thank whatever is in the sky, a splint for his nose.

“Um– okay, JFK, I’m gonna need you to stay completely still for me, okay bro?”

Gandhi’s hands reach up to cup Jack’s face, pulling him down slightly. A hand ghosts Jack’s slightly crooked nose and he twitches, staring off as to not make eye contact. Gandhi squints, pushing his glasses up with one hand as the other continues to hold Jack in place.

“Alright. This is gonna hurt, so just– stay cool, J-Dog.”

Gandhi reaches for Jack’s nose.

Joan can hear the jock howl in pain in the back seat, followed by a crack.

Jack struggles to scramble back as Gandhi keeps a hold on him, applying as much gauze and medical care as an inexperienced teen could.

“Ffffhhhuck– half pint, god–” He groans, breath coming out in nasally wheezes.

“I know, I know, dude, just– why didn’t you call for backup, man? I’m sure Joan or me coulda helped you, dude!” Gandhi pops open a seperate med kit, tugging Jack’s arm towards him to examine the stab wound.

“There was– only three people, I thought I could ‘ave taken them.” He mumbles.

Gandhi presses an alcohol wipe to the wound and Jack yelps.

“Not cool, bro. I could have passed Abe babysitting duty onto Cleo or something and went out with you, but nooooo!”

“Hey, I heard that! I’m capable of taking care of myself, thank you very much.” Abe whines.

“Homies don’t leave homies, Abe, and I’m designating myself to making sure you don’t die in your sleep.”

“But you said–”

“Shhhhshhshhshh. Shhh.”

A beat of silence as Gandhi tends to the wound on Jack’s arm, and the smaller boy looks up at Jack, who’s still staring off.

“...Was it badass, though?” He asks.

“Definitely.” Jack replies.

  
  


-

It’s a month and one day into the apocalypse. The sun rises and Joan looks over to see that Jack and Gandhi are in the same position as last night. She smiles a little. She spots an undead lumbering aimlessly about thirty feet ahead of them, and she instinctively holds her breath and freezes. It reminds her of something. Her blood runs cold.

Abe’s starting to complain that his vision is getting worse.

Joan doesn’t want to think about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha complicated timeline of events go brrr


	3. iii. geyser.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos feed my family
> 
> bully me for this on ig @catheartmac

It’s seven days into the outbreak. Joan doesn’t want to call it an apocalypse just yet.

The road ahead stretches onward for as long as the sky is wide, pulling forward and making her eyes droop. She checks her phone, only charging and functional thanks to the car actually running. Cell service hasn’t been an option since leaving Exclamation, like it was suddenly shut down, but thankfully they haven’t found a reason to chuck them yet. The time reads 12:22 PM, and Joan sighs. It’s felt like days since they pulled onto the highway, driving aimlessly.

The thought of an end point briefly graces Joan’s thoughts. Where are they going?

_ Where are they going? _

Joan looks at the backseat through the mirror. JFK is slumped against Abe’s shoulder, drooling and snorting occasionally. The splint and gauze against his nose makes him snore like a motorboat engine, and it’s so, so fucking grating to the ears. Abe seems to be putting up with it though, staring out the van window with an arm around the jock. Gandhi’s drumming some incomprehensible rhythm on his lap, bunched up close to the door.

Joan looks to Cleo sat in the passenger seat, watching her stare forward, watching her hands absentmindedly braid locks of curling hair. Every so often she would sneak glances back at the girl, taking in small bits of detail before switching her eyes back to the road. She knows Cleo pretends not to notice.

Even still in a situation like this, she still looks pretty.

It’s quiet in the car. Only the crunch of the tires on the road and labored snorting from Jack. Joan drums her fingers against the wheel, staring off. Every now and again she would spot old farmhouses, or tipped phone lines, or something even more alarming, a car or two pulled over to the side.Joan’s stopped once to check an abandoned car a few days ago, and found only a man with a bullet wound through the mouth and the corpse of his infected wife. She hasn’t bothered checking these situations since.

“...Joan.”

Oh. Cleo.

“Yeah..?” She hesitates.

“I don’t bite, jesus,” she scoffs, “but I need to ask.”

Joan’s unreasonably nervous, swallowing back a comment before motioning for her to continue.

“What’s the plan if one of us gets bit?” Cleo asks. Her tone is only slightly condescending, and it grits against Joan.

“The… plan? Probably just-- do what we did with Abe.” She hushes her voice, still aching with hesitance.

“Yeah, but, what if it’s the face? Or collarbone? Joan, that won’t always work.” Slightly, ever so slightly, worry flashes in Cleo’s eyes.

“Then- Then I don’t know. I don’t want anyone to be left behind, but… I just don’t know.” Joan sighs, tense.

“It’s fine to not know, Joan, but with something that infects people that quickly you need to have a backup plan.” Her voice continues gritting against Joan, and she’s trying so damn hard to keep cool.

“I know what I want to happen if I get bit. I’m going to do it myself, Joan. Don’t even touch me when that happens.”

“Shut the fuck  _ up _ , Cleo.” She hisses.

“I don’t want to think about  _ anyone _ dying, I don’t want to think about you dying, or- or Abe, or Gandhi, none of us, okay? Stop- talking like that.” She pushes, nails digging into the leather of the steering wheel.

“Joan, you- I feel like I-”

“What, you feel like you’re above everyone else? You don’t want some nobodies grieving your death? You’re sad you won’t get some pompous funeral-?”

“ _ I feel like I’m not helping you enough! _ ” Cleo lashes, fist pounding against the car door.

The van falls silent again. Cleo stares daggers into Joan.

She needs to get better at that. Being judgemental. Highschool doesn’t matter out here, nor does the drama that came with it. It’s just whoever’s healthy.

“Is your stupid martyr complex or whatever not letting me help? You- You’re acting like the weight of the world is on your shoulders. Newsflash, Joan, we’re probably all going to die out here. So just let me help you, let me be  _ nice _ to you, for god’s sake! I want to be better to you, I do, but I can’t when you’re trying to make yourself the leader of some brigade.” She berates, spitting with a thick sadness covering her words.

Joan inhales shakily, seeing as her throat’s starting to tighten.

“...Okay.”

Her eyes trail off to the side. Cleo sighs.

“What?”

Joan scrambles to find words, something that fits, something that doesn’t stick in her throat. Okay, I’ll be better. Okay, I’ll let you help me. Okay, I’ll stop being scared. Okay, I’ll stop caring.

“...Thanks for telling me.” Joan mumbles hoarsely, eyes on the road.

That may have been enough for her, because Cleo goes silent and stares straight ahead.

The sun burns right down on the car. The air conditioning is on the lowest setting, but Joan’s covered in a cold, nervous sweat. Why was that so hard? Why does she care that much?

Maybe it’s because she’s not entirely paying attention, maybe it’s the glare of the hood of the van, but the van goes over a brief bump and Joan starts hearing the quick, rhythmic thumps of a damaged tire.

Fuck.  _ Fuck _ .

Can they really stop here? Joan peeks in the backseat and finds Gandhi staring at her nervously, glancing off to the side every now and again. JFK is still sound asleep, but Abe looks up in vague confusion.

She slows the van to a stop, pulling over to the side of the abandoned road. The car halts and Jack is bumped awake, wiping his mouth with his sleeve and looking up at Abe, almost expectant of an answer as to why he was woken up.

“Tire’s probably fucked. Kennedy, you got spares, right? Please say yes.” Joan sighs nervously.

“Mngh- er, uh, right in th’ back a’ the trunk. There’s a compartment you can pull up, and there’s a spare in there with some otha’ tools.” Jack grumbles, rubbing his eyes.

Joan nods and heads out of the car, hesitating for a brief moment as Cleo looks at her expectantly. Cleo, in a surprise to Jack, steps out of the car to assist Joan.

Gandhi looks back and forth at the girls and the other two boys, sitting up and heading out of the van.

“Hey, heeeeyyy, I need to get up and schmoove, lemme see!” He exclaims, shutting the door and shuffling up behind Joan.

The trunk door opens, and with a bit of struggle, the compartment is opened. Jack knows for a fact he’s got the needed supplies in there after a scare last winter when he got stuck in the snow with Ponce.

God. Ponce. He hopes he’s okay.

The thought of his best friend makes Jack stiffen a little against Abe, who’s gaze was following Joan and Cleo out to the supposed damaged tire.

“Ya think he’s gonna be okay?” Jack croaks against the awkward, waiting silence.

“Who?” Abe turns back to look at Jack, still positioned against Abe’s shoulder.

“Poncey. How do you think he’s doin’?” Jack huffs.

Abe bites his lip, thinking briefly. The jock wasn’t the most emotionally mature. Bringing up the possibility of his friend meeting a terrible end might end with Abe spitting out his own teeth.

“I think he’ll be just as okay as us.” Abe decides to say.

JFK seems relatively happy with that. He goes lax against Abe again.

“Do you- want me off’a you, or…”

“H-Huh? I mean, uh, I’m fine like this.” Abe stammers.

Silence, save for the thumping and discussion about the tire outside.

Abe looks down at the shorter boy slumped against his shoulder, watching every so often as he would attempt to suck in air through his broken nose, or run a worn hand through what’s left of a gelled pompadour, tucking brown curls behind his ear.

“How’s, er, your leg?” Jack asks faintly, motioning to the stump.

“It- uh, it throbs. A lot. Hurts a lot. I can’t really do too much about it though, y’know? Just trying to grit and bear it.” Abe chuckles a little, the noise vibrating in his chest against the side of Jack’s head. He swallows thickly and continues.

“Um, can I just- say something, JFK?” He asks.

“I don’t care.” Jack’s staring ahead.

“Um- well you know how those infected people, they- vomit blood and stuff?” Abe brings his voice to a gravelly hush.

Jack stops moving all together, looking slowly, slowly up at Abe.

“...I spat blood up last night. I don’t know how long I have, man.” His voice breaks a little at the end, as if he was going to cry.

“You- Abe, you sure? It could jus’ be something else. You- do ya got allergies or something?” Jack asks, attempting to mask the panic in his voice.

“Look, please don’t- don’t tell Joan, okay? I don’t wanna see her torn up about me. I mean, um, again.”

If Jack could, he would sock the boy right in the face for how he treated Joan that night. Prom sufficiently sucked, which is what he and Joan seemed to agree on.

“...Right. I won’t.” Jack manages to get out. This felt wrong.

The car rocks in its place a little. The trunk opens and closes, and Joan opens the driver’s seat door with a huff.

“No damaged tire, thank fuck. Turns out we ran over an infected. Had to scrape the brain matter out of the damn axle.” Joan explains with a laugh, turning the car back on.

“Dude, you shoulda seen it! It was so fuckin’ gross, man, like someone peeled skin and just stuck it on the tire. Totally fuckin’ insane!” Gandhi snorts.

“How the fuck are you so excited about that..? Abe, you okay?” Cleo’s look of disgust at Gandhi is rerouted as she looks at Abe sympathetically.

“Huh? Yeah. My leg hurts, is all.” He waves Cleo off.

“Oh. Jack, stop wrangling the twig and let Gandhi take a look at the stump.” Cleo rolls her eyes, looking back over at Joan.

JFK pushes himself off Abe with a grunt, scooting away with a barely noticeable flush to his cheeks. Gandhi shimmies over Jack’s lap, giving him a knowing little expression before pulling Abe’s butchered stump towards his own person.

Jack spares a glance at the clone’s leg before staring forward.

He couldn’t tell Joan, Not now.

-

It’s one month and three days into the apocalypse.

Joan’s nursing Abe as he writhes uncontrollably on the dirtied concrete ground.

She looks up to the van, parked on the side of the empty street as Cleo holds JFK close to her chest. In his hands is a shredded leather jacket stained with blood and teeth marks.

Gandhi approaches her with a medkit from the van before her vision goes spotty with tears.

The stars look so pretty tonight.


	4. iv. old friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi so i got super paranoid last night and almost deleted the fic so pls dont go posting this to twitter like "ooooo this is so triggering the authors a horrible person" bc . its a zombie apocalypse fic . tf did u expect. anyways if u have any qualms w me my ig is @catheartmac feel free to yell at me there about how awful i am for writing this or sumn

It’s eight days into the outbreak.

Joan doesn’t remember this day that well. It doesn’t matter right now, anyways.

-

It’s still one month and three days into the apocalypse.

The day didn’t start well, didn’t end well.

It started with rain.

The wide skies were cast over with thick grey clouds from the morning she woke up with her arms folded over her chest in the driver’s seat. The air wasn’t stuffy or thick with warmth as per the usual forecast, rather the air felt cold and thin, dreary, if anything.

The first inklings of rainfall came in the form of far away rumbling and small drops against the windows of the van.

Joan adjusted herself upwards, sitting up and leaning up against the steering wheel. Jack’s asleep to her side, holding Gandhi close to his chest. They’ve been doing that recently, Joan thinks, good for them.

The place they’ve stopped in briefly was another abandoned town, vacant and silent. Houses lay quiet and hollow, the only living things sulking about being house pets left behind. The night before Cleo had insisted on feeding a small cat that camped out under the van and Joan had never seen her that happy to see something that wasn’t her reflection.

The rain started falling harder, coming down in quick drizzles as the sky continued to darken. 

Joan looked farther out ahead down a street of emptied houses, spotting open doors and baked in stains of blood on the concrete. A cat running underneath a porch to escape the rain. The corpse of an infected. An abandoned motorcycle. Stray trash and knocked over garbage cans.

The ache of normalcy throbs in Joan’s chest. Take her back. God, take her back. This shouldn’t feel normal. She shouldn’t have to disregard bodies of people like that, or accept the blood and viscera sprayed on the concrete. This shouldn’t be normal.

Maybe that’s why she likes calling this an apocalypse. There’s no way to get back to normal after this.

She sulked a little more and rested her chin against the top of the steering wheel, arms bunched in front of her to pick at hangnails absentmindedly, running the tips of her fingers along damaged nails and scratching, picking.

Catching her reflection in the windshield makes her grimace. Her hair’s a mess, brown roots against pink and broken edges, frays and stray locks pasted to her forehead. It doesn’t make her feel ugly. It makes her feel worn, makes her feel tired just looking.

The rain started hitting a little harder, smacking against metal and glass as wind started howling.

Joan could see out of the corner of her eye as JFK snorted himself awake, looking down at Gandhi before staring off.

“...Mornin’, Joan.” Jack sighs with a husky mumble.

Joan gave him a weak noise of greeting in response, staring off and down that street.

“It’s rainin’.” He noted, drumming fingers against Gandhi’s head.

“No shit, Sherlock. It looks like it’s gonna be pretty heavy.” Joan murmured.

Jack nodded, staring off and out towards the rain. It was starting to make puddles, small reflective pools in potholes or out near drains. Joan could spot a rotting arm peeking out of the sewer drain against the concrete. Jesus.

After a moment of tired silence, Jack softly cleared his throat.

“I wanna go out. In, eh, the rain.” His voice wavered a little.

Joan’s face screwed up at that, looking out as the thick grey clouds continued raining, heavier and heavier against the van.

“Kennedy, you’ll catch a cold or something, and I’m sure you don’t need that right now-” Joan starts.

“Oh, can it, wouldja? It can’t hurt, doll, really. ‘T’s just rain.” Jack rolled his eyes.

Joan didn’t have much to say at that. She glanced at Gandhi sleeping on JFK, then back up to the jock in question with an unreadable expression.

“...Could I come with?” She murmurs just barely above a whisper. JFK nodded.

Jack nudged Gandhi, slowly, slowly working him off his chest and setting him to the side of the seat as he opened the van door and slinked out. The sleeping boy only responded with a mumble and curling further in on himself.

Joan unzipped her hoodie, a recently ‘borrowed’ piece from an abandoned thrift store last time they stopped, and draped it over Gandhi before leaving the van as well.

The rain came down in quick, heavy drops against the concrete as Joan stepped across a puddle to meet with JFK on the other side of the van. The taller boy gave her a smile, one strained against the squinting he had to endure to see in the rain.

The rain was already starting to soak deep into her bones as the pair set off for a slow walk down the main street of the town.

It was silence at first, nothing but the hard pattering against the shingles of roofs and the asphalt of the streets. Jack stared straight ahead, head downcast to avoid rain in his eyes. Joan looked up at him slightly, then back ahead of her.

“So, you gonna tell me why you were itching to get out here?” Joan chuckled.

Jack only shrugs, pulling a hand through the thick curls of his hair.

“Can’t blame a dude for, er, wantin’ to get out. See things, y’know. I, uh, like how loud the rain is. Kinda like those corny white noise machines them pansies use ta’ fall asleep.” He spotted a chunk of rock on the ground, broken up from the concrete, and kicked it into the street.

“Pansies? What, and you fall asleep in dead silence? Sucks to be you.” Joan joked halfheartedly. Jack scoffed.

“Whateva’–” Jack starts, but stops to bark out a laugh. “Heheheheh..! Sucks. Sucks, like suckin’ d–”

Joan elbowed him in the ribs, and he doubled over with an ‘oof’.

The conversation fades out with a couple of scattered chuckles, then silence, only the dragged scuffs of Jack’s sneakers against the pavement.

“...Y’know, we’re gonna get the inside of your van all wet.” Joan remarked. A shrug from JFK.

“Meh. Closest thing to a showa’ I’m, er, gettin’.” Jack chuckled. Joan playfully smacks at him.

“You’re so groooooss. You’re such a dude it hurts. You would think you could keep up with hygiene–”

“Heeeey, it’s a joke, Joan, don’t hit me–!” He whined.

Joan nudged Jack down a street coming off of the one they were on, and the pair head down the smaller road.

“...You sure we, er, aren’t gonna get ambushed out here?” Jack asked.

Joan worried her lip, glancing behind her briefly. Shit. They did forget to bring out weaponry, didn’t they.

“I don’t think the, uh, infected could hear us over the rain. If we do spot some, we’ll head back, ‘kay?” She concluded after a brief pause.

Jack nodded in response, hands buried in his soaked jean pockets.

More silence. The rain had started picking up more, wind whistling at high volumes.

“How’s Gandhi? He seems to like sleeping with you, what’s that about?” Joan asked. Jack chortles briefly.

“Pffheheheh. Sleeping with! Like sex, Joan–”

“I know, Kennedy.”

“Okay. But– er, uh, he’s fine. I’unno why, but the little dude likes sleeping on me. I don’t mind. ‘T’s kinda nice, like if a weighted blanket only weighed three pounds.” He shrugged.

A trash can gets blown over nearby and Joan instinctively flinched, jumping back into JFK’s side. He jolted as well, clutching her shoulders. A minute of stilled silence, and Joan wriggles out of Jack’s grasp.

“Fine, I’m– fine, Jesus. Scared the shit out of me.” She flushed, ducking her head. Jack snickered.

More silence. The pair continue walking, and Joan nudges JFK to the right once they meet the end of the street. A walk around the block, it looked like.

“...Hey, uh, Joan?” Jack piped up, looking down at the girl in question. Joan looks back up.

“Uh. I neva’ got ta’ thank you.” He said, voice hushed against the rain.

Joan looked at him, puzzled. He clears his throat.

“Neva’ thanked you for, er, a few things. I think I’ll let ya take your pick, though. God, doesn’t that suck I gotta keep crawlin’ back to you like that?” He remarked.

“You aren’t crawling, that implies you’re weak or something. I just happen to be there for you. I, um, don’t think I’d have it any other way.” She keeps her head ducked, scratching the back of her neck.

“You– we’re… acquaintances. We gotta help each other out, you know? Leave no man behind? I think leaving you behind would be the worst thing I can do to myself.”

“Is it just me, or... did Joan of Arc say something nice ta’ me? Really? I gotta be hallucinating again.”

“Again?”

“Don’t worry about that. But that’s… really, er, sweet, Joanie. Thanks.” He smiled, a toothy, gapped grin that strikes Joan right in the heart.

“Y–Yeah. Don’t mention it.” She stammered.

Joan could feel JFK shiver slightly against her, bumping against her every now and again with teeth chattering.

“You wanna head back..? You’re vibrating out of your skin, Kennedy.” Joan asked, looking back up at the boy.

He wrapped his arms around himself, the rain thoroughly soaked into every inch of himself. He nodded, tucking the hair plastered to his forehead by the rain back behind his ears.

The two turned to the right again, back up another street and back towards the main street. Joan spotted the motorcycle from earlier and a chill ran down her spine. This was the street she was looking down earlier, spotting JFK’s van up at the top of the street.

Jack squints a little, staring up ahead at the houses lining the street.

“Hey, Joan? You got an idea of where we’re stopped at?” He asked.

“Um… not really. Once we got out of Exclamation, we just– kept driving.”

Joan spotted an abandoned car sat on the side of the road, breaching the curb and rammed into a tree. The license plate was too scuffed up to even read the state name on the plate. Great.

“Damn.” The jock huffed.

The pair continued down the street, kicking trash and branches away from their path down the pavement. Jack kept his gaze on the houses, looking down the row of open doors and abandoned houses.

There’s not much cause for alarm, so when JFK paused entirely in front of one house with a disgruntled expression, Joan stopped in her tracks.

“Jack? What’s wrong?” Fuck, she doesn’t have any weapons, fuck–

JFK shushed her.

There, travelling through the sound of the rain, just barely, was the sound of groaning.

His sneakers dragged against the brick steps of the porch, slowly moving closer and closer to the noise inside the house. Joan’s heart hammered against her ribs, jolting up to her throat and making her swallow thickly. Fuck.  _ Fuck _ .

“...It– said my name.” He murmured.

“What..?” She hisses.

“It said my name, Joanie. I– I heard it say Jack.” He sounded hurt, almost.

Jack inched closer to the door, stiff with fear as a hand brushed against the door. God, this was stupid, they had nothing to defend themselves with, they didn’t have a backup plan, nothing, they were going to die because  _ this fucking oaf heard an infected say his name– _

The door is pushed open.

Daylight filters in on the house coated in dust and past life, once bustling with people, live people, now only held the corpses of several people around their age. The walls were coated with blood, splattered or smeared, and trails of thick red soaked into the carpet.

Raided bags, torn open throats, empty bullet shells, snuffed out fires…

This was an impromptu camp.

This was some of their classmates.

Joan can briefly spot ginger hair splayed out and crusted with drying blood when Jack makes a pitiful whining noise.

She followed his gaze into what could be interpreted as a living room.

A leather jacket, bloodied and torn with teeth marks, sat crumpled on the floor.

Another weak noise escaped Jack’s throat, and Joan could only watch in pity as his shaking legs carried him down in front of the jacket. Immediately, he rifled through the pockets, patting it down, checking every inch of it for something.

“Jack..?” Joan’s voice came out hushed, wavering with sympathy.

He stops, feeling something in the pocket. Pulling it out, he mumbled to himself. A half empty carton of candy cigarettes. He continued, finding a set of pins, and moved to the tag of the jacket. He froze in his tracks, gasping and letting out another pained noise.

“...Joan. It’s– his. It’s Ponce’s, this is his jacket, Joan, Joan–” He hiccups, shaking.

She hadn’t seen him like this since–

“Joan, Joan I– I can’t– Ponce, this can’t–”

He doesn’t deserve to feel like this.

“Joan–? Joan, what do I do– Joan, please, Poncey, I dunno– this is his– please–”

Why did he lose so much so quickly?

Joan’s train of thought was interrupted by the pained wailing and hiccuping from the jock, doubled over on his knees.

“ _ Joan, where is he–? _ ”

No matter how badly she wanted to answer him, no matter how much she wanted to tell him that he was okay, that this was a different person, that Ponce was fine…

All she can do is sit herself behind him and hold him.

The rain starts to slow down outside. Less noise means you’re more likely to be heard.

“Kennedy– Kennedy, listen, we have to go, okay? We can’t stay here, we need to go–”

All that comes out of him is ragged gasps for air as the jacket was held tightly against his own chest.

“Kennedy– Jack, please, we don’t know if there’s infected nearby, come on, j–just get up…” She nudged him, standing up and pulling at his shoulders.

He managed to move, swaying as he got himself to his feet. It hurt too much to see him like that, face streaked with tears and jaw clenched in silent horror. She pulled the boy towards the door as the rain slowed to a light drizzle.

She jogged down off the porch, waiting as Jack dragged himself out holding the jacket in one hand. Glazed eyes darted up to look at Joan, teeth chattering and breath ragged. He was in bad shape.

Joan pulled him closer by the bicep, arm curled around his own as they made their way down to the van, Jack’s shaky breath grating against Joan and threatening to make her tear up. 

It takes a second, ushering the boy to the van. Gandhi was still sitting in the passenger seat, and was the first to spot them, waving happily in the seat, with what of him actually showed up in the window without a booster seat. He took a glance at JFK, expression shifting as he turned back to exclaim something to Cleo and Abe.

The backseat van door opens and Jack, in all his distraught, horrified glory, barely managed to get himself into the back without almost breaking down. Gandhi looked at Joan with dismay as she got into the driver’s seat, soaked and filled with sympathetic grief.

“Joan–? W–What gives? Neither of you got bit, right? I can climb in the back and get a first aid kit, or–”

Joan spotted Jack wailing into the leather jacket in the back as Cleo pulled him into an embrace.

“It’s– It’s– um, we– found Ponce’s jacket.” She mumbled.

Gandhi looked back at Jack, then at Joan with a guilty expression, bottom lip twitching downwards.

“You found his..? Oh. Oh my God, JFK–” He swiveled back, hopping out of the front seat and shimmying his way back.

Joan swallowed down the deep pit in her stomach as she shifted the van into drive, pulling out and away. Another town skipped. Another horrific incident.

It had only gotten worse from there.

As they drove away from the town in question, and the rain ceased to a halt, Jack quieted down into a hollow mess, spaced out and still soaked to the bone, teeth chattering as every now and again he would sniffle. Joan wasn’t doing much better, shivering in her place as she gripped crescents into the leather of the steering wheel. The image of when she found Jack in his home the day of the outbreak was brought back into her mind, that same horrified, hollow look. It hurt so fucking much.

It was about three hours out when Joan decided to bring the car to a halt on an empty highway, littered with abandoned cars. The van was parked as the afternoon sky started melting from a soft blue to more complicated pinks, purples and oranges. The sun started setting pretty early here. She had to remember that.

“...I think stopping here for the night’s fine, yeah?” Joan asked, voice hushed.

JFK was long out at this point, having cried himself to sleep. Gandhi was once again plastered to him, coddling him on one side as Cleo rubbed circles in the back of his neck on the other side of him. Abe had been loaded into the very back seat since the start of the morning, remaining quiet since then.

Cleo gave a confirming nod, gently moving Jack to be placed in Gandhi’s hug as she slipped out of the back seat and into the front seat besides Joan.

Joan greeted the girl with a smile, strained with tension. The thought was there.

“...Joan? I know you don’t need any more stress right now, but,” Cleo lowered her voice, “something’s up with Abe.”

Joan could feel her heart stop at that.

“What do you mean..? Cleo, he’s fine, right? He’s not sick, is he?” She asked, hesitance lacing her words.

“Joan, when you were out with JFK I spotted his nose bleeding. I don’t think it was the weather, or allergies, or– or fucking whatever, this was a lot of blood. He– He was clammy, and sweaty, but he just blamed it on the rain, but Joan–? I think–”

“Cleo, shut up– please, God, I don’t want to think about it. Please don’t make me think about it.”

The thought made her feel even more sick, head swimming as she sat back in her seat.

“Joan, this is serious. He’s been quiet all day. He didn’t let Gandhi look at his leg last night, he’s not even looking at me! Just– could you check on him? For me?”

Joan looked Cleo up and down, disgruntled and attempting to hide the fear written on her face. For her, maybe. But if Abe really is sick…

“...Fine.”

Joan opened the door, marching back towards the trunk of the vehicle with apprehension. A make or break, a doctor’s check in, whatever this was, something deep in her brain told her not to check up on Abe. If you don’t see something is wrong, it doesn’t exist.

Joan swallowed back the lump in her throat before opening the door to the trunk.

Abe… looked fine. At first glance, anyways. Reading a magazine they grabbed during one of their stops, flipping through the pages. It was close to his face, squinting as if he was struggling to read it. When Joan opened the door, though, he jumped, scooting backwards.

“Joan–!! What, uh, brings you back here.” He ducked his head, avoiding her gaze.

“Abe? Uh– Cleo just, um, wanted me to make sure you’re okay.” She spoke softly, inching closer as she leaned into the back. Abe continued looking away from her.

“That’s great, Joan–! All quiet on the western front, or whatever. Right as rain! You know me!” He laughed near incredibly nervously. Joan wasn’t buying it.

“...Abe? Look at me.” She started, voice firm.

“Whaaaat? I don’t need to look at you, Joan, I’m all good!” He scoffed.

“Abe. Look at me, please. What’s so bad if you’re fine?” She asked.

Abe, with shaking arms, slowly adjusted himself and turned to face Joan with an expression unreadable, yet laced with… guilt.

What once were hazel eyes belonging to her friend were now foggy as a sickly yellow film was making its way across the surface area of his eyes. Bloodshot, pale yellow, and swimming with regret.

Along with what were smears of blood coming from his mouth and nose, stains of deep red swatched across his face in a hasty attempt to hide the bleeding.

Oh.

How couldn’t she have seen this coming..?

“It’s– not as bad as it looks, I– I swear–” Abe started, coughs lining his voice.

“Abe. Don’t fucking start.”

Joan pulled Abe forward, the boy reluctantly getting shoved and moved to the edge of the trunk in order for Joan to inspect his leg. The right stump was swollen even under the bandaging, angry red turning into yellows and purples the more her eyes scanned downward. The blood collecting at the bottom of the bandaging was a deep crimson, almost black in the natural lighting. It made Joan even more sick to her stomach, so much so that she backed up and doubled over, arching towards the side of the van as hot bile worked its way up her throat and onto the road. Jesus fucking  _ Christ _ .

“Joan–!!” Abe yelped, but stopped as he began coughing into his fist.

“...How long.” Her voice was stone cold.

“What..?”

“How fucking long were you hiding this from us.”

Blue stared daggers into now yellowed hazel as Joan bore holes right through Abe, gaze hard with regret and rage.

The silence chilled the both of them, the conversation now in earshot of Cleo and the others.

“...Two weeks.” Abe finally sighed.

“Two… weeks–? Abe, I–”

“I didn’t want you to get upset–!! I didn’t want you, or Gandhi, or– or Cleo, or fucking JFK to get upset! Be–Because that means you’ll feel bad about having to put me down like some f–fucking dog!” He shouted, shaking violently.

More silence. Abe started coughing again.

“I– I didn’t– I didn’t want to see you or Gandhi crying over me.” He sobs through coughs.

One violent hack into his fist and Abe draws back blood and small chunks of flesh in his palm. His expression is one that would sear itself into the back of Joan’s mind.

“...I don’t feel good, Joan.” He garbled out.

The next thing Joan knew, Abe began seizing up.

The next thing Joan knew, she had Abe on the ground as he shook violently, tears spilling out of unfocused, yellowed eyes.

The next thing Joan knew, Abe stopped moving.

Joan tilted her head up to the sky, watching as the last of the oranges and blues of the sky began fading, watching as the first notion of stars started appearing in the darker portions of the sky.

Gandhi rushed up behind her, medical kit in hand as he frantically yelled for assistance.

The stars look so pretty tonight.


	5. v. lonesome love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me frantically typing to reach the 20k milestone but still not hitting it: GHRHRGREGEGEEGDGRHEGE  
> ill probably go back and add more bc im literally determined to make this the longest fic in the clone high tag and once i hit 20k words theres no stopping me

Joan doesn’t know what time it is.

It’s still one month and three days into the apocalypse, and Abe is frantically seizing in front of her.

In all honesty, she’s checked out. The boy on the ground in front of her is seizing and dying and frothing and _spitting up blood right in front of her_ , and everything just feels so, so numb. A crushing sensation right in the back of her head that sucks the breath out of her.

She doesn’t notice the hot tears streaking down her face, nor does she notice when she stops screaming, but she knows that there’s nothing coming out of her throat now except for pained, choked sobbing. It fucking hurts. _It fucking hurts_.

All her tunnelled vision could focus on was Abe, twitching against the cool asphalt ground, writhing and contorting in pain as more blood funnelled out of his mouth and nose. He’s crying, he’s wailing, calling for his mom, for someone, anyone—

He’s sixteen. He’s sixteen, Joan thinks. He’s too young to suffer like this. All of them are.

Abe starts coughing and his head lolls to the side, clouded eyes focusing in on Joan as murky tears mix with the blood and viscera surrounding his head like a mock halo. Through tears she can make out the shape of Abe’s hand shakily moving upwards from it’s twitching spot against his leg, but he manually stops himself, putting his arm back down.

He doesn’t want to hurt her. He doesn’t want to make her cry.

The pounding of footsteps briefly register against her ears when Gandhi appears in view, medical kit in hand. It’s only then when the starting pain of stray pebbles dig in against her knees. She registers the feeling in her hands, comes back into herself, and she realizes she’s on the ground praying.

“Joan– Joan what the _fuck_ are you doing–?! Get over here and help, please, just fucking help him–” Gandhi’s frantic. He never sounds like that.

“I’m sorry, I don’t– I don’t know, I don’t know, I’m just–” She shuts herself up.

Gandhi pops the kit open and rifles around for something, anything as Joan moves herself beside Abe to feel his pulse. It’s racing, and he’s clammy and cold.

The boy on the ground utters a pitiful shriek as he starts foaming at the mouth, drooling and gurgling. It’s likely in that position he’d suffocate on his own fluid before turning.

How was this taking in so long? Why was he in so much pain? She felt sick again.

“Keep his head to the side. It’s like when someone has a seizure or something, or like– passes out, you keep their head to the side to make sure they don’t choke. D–Dammit, Joan, fuck–” Gandhi wheezes, pulling a compress cloth and a small bottle of water from the kit.

Joan sweeps her hands under Abe’s head and tilts it off to the side as another violent jerk wracks through his body, blood and chunks of internal flesh and stomach acid choking out of his mouth.

She feels awful, she feels fucking awful. The look on Gandhi’s face makes her feel worse. He knows this is in vain. So does she.

The cloth is soaked in water and Gandhi moves down the length of Abe’s body, down to the stump of his leg, and it doesn’t look much better down there. The blood is still near black in color, and Gandhi slowly begins pulling the wet bandages down. There’s no smell of necrosis and infection, thank the lord, but from Gandhi’s reaction it doesn’t look good.

The compress is put upon the exposed stump, the hasty surgical procedure done on it the day it was removed probably not making it look much better than it currently did. Abe yelps and squirms, breath rapid.

“...J–Jo– an– Joan– I don’t want to– Joan– don’t let me go–” He rasps between gargles of blood.

Something about it makes her skin crawl, just a bit. Please stop suffering, she thinks, just die already and stop suffering, please oh God please—

“Abe–?” She chokes. His dilated eyes staring holes right at her. It makes her feel so much guilt, gnawing at the bottom of her stomach.

He doesn’t respond verbally. It’s quite likely that, in that moment, he used his last grip on his own life to smile at her.

Joan wouldn’t know, though. Because after he gives her his best smile, something that could read as apologetic, he finally goes limp. The hand against his wrist grips a little tighter when she feels that there isn’t a pulse.

She steps away from the corpse of her friend, heaving wordless apologies in the form of pained sobbing, the kind that doesn’t even let you cry, the kind that makes you want to curl up in agony and vomit.

Abe died right in her arms. He died right in her arms and she couldn’t do anything.

Gandhi steps back from his best friend in the same wordless shock as Joan, eyes darting back towards the van.

“We should– we need to– Joan, we need to sever the head.” His voice is too quiet.

Joan looks back over to the van. The trunk is still opened, with JFK and Cleo sat against the tail end and huddled against each other, either in fear or grief.

“...I’ll get the shotgun.”

Her steps felt like lead, dragging her boots against the ground as she made her way to the van, opening one of the doors and stretching to grab the shotgun placed on the floor of the vehicle. Switching the safety off and loading it accordingly, along with a few extra shells held in her pocket, she made eye contact with Gandhi as he stood by Abe’s body.

The silence was palpable as she aimed the shotgun towards her friend’s body.

“You don’t have to look, you know.” She tries her best to keep her voice steady. It doesn’t really work.

Gandhi goes to say something, but stops, looking back down at Abe with glassy eyes swimming with tears. He swallows once and looks back up at Joan, then turns to face away.

Joan takes that as a go.

She squeezes her eyes shut and fires directly into Abe’s neck, blood and flesh spraying across the road. Just enough to sever some part of the spine to the brain, obliterated to the point that, if he did happen to reanimate, there were no nerves, no connections to the body. That’s what they did in zombie movies, right?

She didn’t want to shoot him in the head. It’d feel like she was murdering him.

Gandhi jumps out of his skin at the noise, tense as his hands shake at his side. He doesn’t bother looking, only turning back to look at Joan.

“...’m going to bed.” He mumbles, heading back towards the van as his feet drag.

They need to bury him. At the very least, they need to cover him up. Put him to rest.

Joan walks back to the van and throws the shotgun across the backseat, shutting the door and taking a second to breathe, leaning her head against the van with a heavy sigh. Today was not going well, and that's an understatement. Gathering her thoughts she headed to the back of the open trunk as Gandhi swung the passenger door open, presumably to sleep the day off.

JFK and Cleo were still sat in the trunk, the jock sniveling pitifully into the girl’s chest as she held him tight against her. Joan only looks on with a hollow expression as she maneuvered around them to find any kind of sheet that was possibly in the trunk.

“Kennedy, is there– do you keep a blanket in here somewhere?” Joan asks.

Jack clears his throat, looking up from his spot in Cleo’s arms.

“Er, I, eh, think there’s one crammed under the seats. Either that or I managed to shove one in a floor compartment.” He replies, before going back to wallowing in his ex’s arms.

Joan searches under the seats first, the back row of seats having a slight elevation to them, allowing things to be shoved under there. Joan feels around and comes across a white cloth. Having come across what she needed, she pulls it out in front of her, and–

It’s a bong. There’s a bong wrapped up in a cloth. She’s not blind, she knows what a bong is shaped like, and the shape of said bong is not so skillfully hidden in the cloth. Joan stares at it for a solid thirty seconds before turning back to Jack and Cleo. Jack is also staring at the bong with a look of ‘oh shit’.

“Um– that’s, eh, not mine–”

Joan unwraps the bong from the cloth and finds a small baggie also having been put in there, filled with four or so well sized buds. She looks back at Jack again.

“...Er, uh, I’m jus’– holding it for a friend?” He chuckles nervously, a last ditch effort to prevent a disapproving look from Joan.

It doesn’t work. She gives him a disapproving look. It kind of hurts, really.

Though, considering what she just went through, a thought crosses her mind that makes her recoil a bit. His body is no more than ten feet away from her, she thinks, he needs to be buried.

But some urges are stronger than others, and by God she just wants to stop thinking for a little bit.

“Gandhi? Could you get back here, buddy..?” Joan calls out to the front.

-

And forty minutes later, four teenagers were sitting close to each other, passing around a glass bong no more than ten feet away from the corpse of their friend.

People cope with grief in odd ways, and Joan has found that the numb of substance works quite well.

It’s funny, too, she remembers sitting in front of the TV in the living room as a kid, watching every other commercial as anti-drug ads would flash cheap propaganda at her face for the allotted air time.

Joan laughs to herself as the bong is passed to her. It feels like it’s starting to fill her head with fuzz even as she takes another hit and passes it off to Cleo.

Gandhi shoots her a squinted glance before snorting, leaning back up against JFK.

“...Say, you guys think, eh, there’s a God up there?” Jack starts, rubbing Gandhi’s head.

“Jesus, way to get cliché, dude. It’s not even that strong, quit acting like you’re seeing the universe or some shit.” Cleo laughs.

“No, no–! I mean, like– the original JFK was a Catholic, I think, right? An’ I think I’ve come to a conclusion. That guy was, er, totally off his ass wrong. No way a loving God would do this!” He waves his unoccupied hand frantically as he exclaims, and only stops when the bong is passed to him again.

“God, he’s totally cliché. Give it a rest, Jackie, just chill out or some shit. Don’t green out or you’ll feel like shit, too.” Gandhi rolls his eyes.

“I know how weed works, bald nerd–!!” He smacks Gandhi’s head, and the smaller boy yelps, then laughs.

“Jack’s right, though, no way a loving God would throw this shit at us.” Joan shrugs.

“Aren’t you supposed to hear his voice or something? Are you picking anything up, or…” Cleo leans forward. Joan squints.

“Nnnnnope. I haven’t gotten anything since the radio station incident. Even then, that was a total farce.” She huffs.

The four of them fall into a comfortable silence, the bong sat off to the side as the continuing static fill their heads and the air around them. The sun continues setting and a slight chill settles into Joan’s skin, scooting in further to Cleo’s side. Cleo doesn’t entirely protest, letting the girl nuzzle further into her side. Joan looks a little upwards to the two boys sat across from her. Jack’s lips are stretched into a lazy smile as he traces circles into Gandhi’s head. She’s always sort of wondered if he was capable of growing hair there, or maybe whatever tube he was grown out of just blocked those genes.

“What’s next..?” Gandhi starts.

“What? Not everyone’s in your brain, dude, clarify.” Joan laughs.

“What next, as in where are we going after this. My buddy’s gone, man. The fuck am I doing here?” Gandhi deflates in his spot. Jack traces hearts on the top of his head.

“Um- well, let’s think of it like this. Let’s just do what we’ve been doing, huh? Next time we see an exit, we’ll head off there and see if there’s some place to stop.” Joan’s voice is gentle, and Gandhi pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess. We’ve been living out of this thing for a while. Makes me feel like a real roadie, y’know. JFK, you ever thought about decoration in here? I’m getting so tired a’ lookin’ out of the window, man.” He groans. JFK shrugs.

The topic dies off as they fall silent again. Somewhere far off, a dog starts howling. Joan can spot stars becoming more visible in the sky. It’s kind of nice, she thinks. No light pollution to block out seeing the small glittering dots that hang in the deep, murky blue of the sky. It makes her feel smaller, but not in a bad way. In a way that the sky feels like a blanket, not quite smothering her, making her feel like she’s being watched over, that there’s someone up there making sure she’s safe. Maybe that’s heaven, just a bunch of stars hanging in the air, watching her. Okay. She’s definitely sure that she’s high.

“Joan? What’re we gonna do about Abe..?” Cleo’s voice is hushed. Joan’s eyes dart out of the van.

“I don’t know. I think when I’m, um, sober, I’ll jus’ pick him up and put him somewhere.”

There’s grass off the side of the highway, growing in a divet that counts more as a ditch to grab unlucky cars, a space of green that rolls into spaced out trees before they thin out into a stretch of plains and dotting of abandoned houses older than any of their foster grandparents. She would probably pick Abe up and place him down in that ditch before covering him up, maybe leave him with something nice, like a flower if she managed to find one. Or a gravestone.

“I don’t want animals to eat him or something.” Joan whispers.

“You know that’s gonna happen anyways, right? Some poor rats are gonna find his body and pick the meat right off. Circle of life, Joan. If you don’t come to terms with that, well, things are gonna hurt a lot more.” Cleo’s voice is not quite condescending, not quite cold with the same air as the current chill outside. It rubs Joan the wrong way, regardless of her drugged gaze.

“...Jesus, you just have to be a bitch now, huh.” Joan slurs.

“I’m not being a bitch, I’m convincing both you and myself. We can’t dwell on his body too long. You know, it could attract the infected, or undead, or whatever you call them.” Cleo rolls her eyes.

“What do you call them, then?” Joan asks.

“Monsters,” Cleo answers.

Joan rolls her neck back with a satisfying pop and stretches. Yeah. Monsters make sense.

They fall back into silence once more. JFK reaches over for the bong and Gandhi smacks his hand away, pulling it back with a lazy scowl. Jack gruffly mutters something and leans back.

It’s a comfortable quiet, as the shrill chirping of distant crickets start sounding off someplace in the grass. Next to the weed induced buzz in her head comes a haze that pulls at her eyelids, having her nuzzle closer into herself and Cleo and yawn. It almost grabs at her when Jack starts laughing a little, staring holes into the wall of the van.

“...Are we really doin’ this? Gandhi, short stack, would you call this living or running?” He rasps. He swallows something in his throat, and Joan could blame that on the cottonmouth.

“Don’t get philosophical this fucking late, dude. It’s dark out. Might as well go to bed.” Joan huffs.

None of them really know what to do with the bong. Cleo eyes it up and passes it to Joan. Joan dumps the water and burned remnants of bud out onto the street before putting the bong on the floor of the van, the glassware landing with a heavy ‘thunk’. Joan takes one last look outside before shutting the trunk.

Joan settles back in at her spot next to Cleo. It was safe to assume her and the others were still considerably under the influence, with her currently witnessing Gandhi staring unblinking at Jack for, so far, two and a half minutes with a dopey smile. He’s halfway in JFK’s lap, the pair of them tangled together.

“We gonna move to the seats?” Gandhi asks.

“Nah,” Jack responds.

“...You’re really pretty from this angle, homie.”

“Thanks.”

Joan turns to Cleo, who looks at her with the same amused expression.

“I mean it, bro! Your eyelashes, dude, real nice.” Gandhi sighs.

“You’re starting to sound gay, tiny fella.” Jack snorts.

Joan gives a small laugh, and Gandhi shoots her a look.

“Hey, you’re laughing like I’m wrong! Look at him, Joan, total Greek god status.” Gandhi flails his arms. A hand smacks against Jack’s face.

At this point, Cleo starts laughing, looking at Joan again.

“Shouldn’t I have a say on whether or not he’s Greek god status? The original me was Greek, anyways, right? I totally have a say on that.” She chortles. 

“Whatever, you’re no fun. Can you at least agree with me or something? God, you suck, you all suck, I’m goin’ to bed, dude.” Gandhi pouts, but as he rolls over against JFK she can see his shoulders shake with laughter.

JFK, during that whole ordeal, was staring off with hazy eyes and a small smile. He likes the attention, Joan is sure about that.

Joan shakes her head, stifling a yawn with her fist as she feels Cleo press herself a little closer to her. She doesn’t mind.

Joan looks out of one of the windows of the van. The sky at this point has become a deep, deep purple, not quite an inky black, but dark enough to lull her closer to rest.

Cleo’s head dips into the dip of Joan’s neck, and the girl in question starts flushing a slight shade of red. It’s not like she’s nervous or anything, she’s already mentally destroyed the hierarchy of highschool, now only ever seeing Cleo as another survivor, but this felt a little different. Different than when she was pining after Abe different. She shoots Jack a glance, and he raises his eyebrows in a knowing glance before scooping Gandhi up and laying him to rest on his chest.

Joan pushes that feeling down into the depths of her soul as she places her head on top of Cleo’s, relaxing the unknowingly held tension in her shoulders to finally close her eyes.

It comes relatively quick. Maybe it’s the weed, but Joan drifts off that night. No nightmares, no dreams, just pure black in her own head as the night crawls forward.

-

It's one month and four days into the apocalypse.

Joan wakes up to a draft in the van, blowing air into the side of her face. Her head doesn’t pound with what would come from alcohol, but her throat retains a slight cottonmouth feeling from last night. Her arm’s gone numb, the side where Cleo’s head lay in the dip of her neck. She flexes her fingers, then her hand as she peers around to where the draft was coming from. The back door of the van was slightly open, with Jack and Gandhi missing from their side of the van.

Joan’s heart drops with fear briefly, before she hears the dragging of something and chatter from outside, directly outside the van.

Okay. They’re alive. Okay.

“–and I’m sorry for what I said last night, um, I really shouldn’t have–” She hears Gandhi start.

“Don’t worry about it. I thought it was, eh, kinda nice? A guy doesn’t get nice compliments nowadays, yeah? N–Not like I’m askin’ fer more, because that’s gay as shit.” Jack sighs back.

“Sure, homeslice. Sure. By the way, I like your hair. I like the messy look, it suits you.” Gandhi says, and Joan can just hear the shiteating grin on her face.

There’s silence for a minute, and Joan could just picture that shocked silent look Jack gets sometimes.

“...Shaddup. You’re gay. That’s gay, knock it off, short stack.” Jack bristles at that.

Gandhi snorts, laughing and smacking the van.

“Hey–!! Quiet, the other two’re probably still asleep. I don’t wanna deal with a coupl’a angry broads, last thing I need this morning.”

There’s silence again. Cleo stirs next to Joan. She starts blushing again. Dammit.

“...I should go see if they’re awake, actually. Stay right there, shortie.”

Heavy steps hit against the ground and Jack cautiously peers into the van, spotting Joan and, by proxy, Cleo, awake and conscious.

“Er– you’re, uh, awake. Mornin’ ladies.”

Cleo slowly lifts her head off of Joan’s shoulders, sighing briefly as she registers where exactly she had spent the night. A twinge in her neck makes her flinch, and Joan feels just a little hurt when she moves away from her.

“How’d you sleep? Uh, Joan, I took care a’– y’know. Him. You don’t gotta worry, yeah?” Jack smiles. It’s soft. Joan likes those kinds of smiles from him.

“...Thanks. You think I could see him before we get on the road?” She asks quietly, voice rough from sleep.

“Uh– you might not wanna do that, Joanie. See, I think a couple turkey buzzards or somethin’ came in last night, because when we went ta’ check on him last night, he– um– didn’t look that great. I’m sorry.” He looks down at his shoes, kicking at gravel.

Joan has to process that a little. Maybe if she didn’t up and decide the beat course of action was to get high last night, maybe if she took care of the body–

No. Cleo had a point. Just let go of the body, circle of life, that stuff. It still hurts, though, it punches her right in the gut. She whimpers, and Jack winces.

“...Alright.”

“Alright?”

“Alright. That’s fine, I don’t need to see him.”

Jack looks at her briefly, then nods.

“...I can drive, okay? Take a break, Joan.” He hums. Gandhi treads up behind Jack, peeking behind him and waving at Joan through an opening between the trunk’s van door and Jack’s hip.

Joan looks at the jock with something akin to scolding, almost offended, but softens and shakes her head in defeat.

“Fine. I get passenger, though.” She huffs. Jack grins triumphantly.

Jack steps back to allow Gandhi to crawl into the van before shutting it. Joan cracks her knuckles and maneuvers her way up and into the backseat, before moving again once more into the passenger seat. It takes a bit of effort, and she’s a little winded, but she’s there before Jack opens the driver’s side door.

Jack looks at her, tilting his head slightly as his expression turns quizzical.

“...What.” Joan asks with a scrunch of her face.

“You, er, look angry when you’re not carrying the team on yer back.” His eyes are half lidded and he gives this shit eating grin as he turns the key in the ignition. Joan seethes in her spot.

“Don’t you have someone to flirt with, you ass?” She teases.

“Oho, harsh are we? Pardon me for not letting you drive today.” Jack snickers.

“You’re gonna make me drop dead or some shit with how you suddenly want to run things. Are you sure you should even be driving? How do I know if you’re even sober, huh?”

There’s silence as JFK shifts the car into drive, pulling out slowly into the middle of the highway.

“I’unno. I’m not sure about that part myself.” He shrugs.

“Jesus, Jack.” Joan scoffs.

“What, what’s gonna happen, is an infected cop gonna pull me over? God forbid, right? Law isn’t real anymore Joan, I thought we could agree on this.” He laughs.

Joan laughs with him, shaking her head. Him and Gandhi are surprisingly good at that, distracting grief with comedy.

Gandhi. She needs to talk to him, make sure he’s okay.

Joan sits back in her seat, running a hand through her hair, thinking back on last night’s conversation. It’s a little hazy, but after some concentration, she plays back parts in her head and thinks. There really is no loving God up there, cheesy revelation aside. A loving God wouldn’t take her friend like that. A loving God wouldn’t have made her shoot his corpse, or make her hold his body, or have her not see the signs sooner, or–

“Joan? Yer crying.” Jack’s hand hovers close to her in concern as his eyes dart between her and the road.

Joan feels her face. So she was.

“...Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.”

Silence.

“...Sure, Jack.”

More silence.

“What’re you, uh, thinkin’ about? I remember readin’ in some pamphlet about how bottlin’ yer thoughts are bad, so, um…”

At least he makes attempts, Joan thinks.

“You first.” She huffs.

Jack looks caught off guard, worrying his bottom lip.

“Uh– okay, didn’t, er, expect that.”

A pregnant pause between the two after that makes Joan respond by reaching over to tug at JFK’s ear. Not enough to hurt him of course, rather the tug a mom would give a child.

“Ow–!! Okay! Okay, fuck, fine.” Jack sucks in a breath and sighs.

“...Um. I think a lot about– Ponce. An’ how I think that if I keep cryin’ over him it’ll just make things, um, worse, maybe?”

“Like, I don’t try, er, uh, thinkin’– about my dads, or Ponce, so if I don’t get think about it and upset over them, everything runs smoothly. I kinda– feel bad? In the way that everyone stops to try and comfort me.”

“I don’t want you guys frettin’ over me, ‘cause I can just stop being sad and– fuckin’ whatever, that’s stupid, can we go back to bottling thoughts up or somethin’–”

Joan reaches over to the steering wheel, gripping one of Jack’s hands. He pulls it off the wheel and holds it, squeezing as he bites his lip.

“We don’t have time to get upset over people at a time like this, y’know?” Jack’s voice cracks a little, and he clears his throat.

“We don’t, do we.” Joan replies.

“What do you think about?”

“...Everything. I feel like if I mess up, or someone gets hurt, everything’s gonna spiral and we’ll all die. I’ve been trying to hold onto something, trying to be optimistic. It’s hard, Kennedy. It’s– really hard.”

“And now, with– with Abe, I feel like it’s my fault somehow. Like I could have somehow found a way to make him live through that, or not make him suffer.”

“I just feel like everything’s my fault.”

There’s silence in response. Joan’s head dips down as she fights back tears threatening to burn the corners of her eyes. Jack continues holding her hand, thumb rubbing into the top of Joan’s hand. The van slows and Jack turns to offer her a sympathetic look.

“Hey.”

Joan looks up, swallowing.

“Er– nothing is your fault, Joan. You’re doin’ the best you can do, right? We all are. You– uh, you aren’t alone, right?”

She nods.

“All of us are right here, on the same playin’ field as you. All you can do is, er, uh, all you can do.” His face looks a little panicked, as if he’s worried if he’s saying the right things.

Joan smiles a little, squeezing back at JFK’s hand.

“...Thanks. I’m here for you too if you need it, okay?”

He goes to speak, but stops, turning back to the road with a small smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh btw things will only get worse from here


	6. vi. pink in the night.

They’re about an hour out from where they stopped when an exit off the highway comes up. They’re in no rush, with the car moving slow as to conserve gas. Joan peeks at the fuel gauge. They need to stop soon.

The exit is off to the right, and Joan’s not entirely well versed in the understanding of highway directions, but it probably leads to some county after a bit of driving.

JFK pulls into the exit and Joan watches the grass from her window of the van go from untrimmed wildgrass and sparse trees to more managed ground and larger trees. It’s kind of cool to look at.

There’s a flipped car some fifty feet ahead of the van, and they pass by it like it’s nothing. It makes her think about how lucky they actually are. Living out of a van sucks a little, yes, but the fact that they have a stable mode of transportation makes her heart swell. They’re so fucking lucky.

“Yeesh. That’s a mess and a half, right Joanie?” JFK’s eyes stare down the flipped car as they drive past before looking back at the road.

“Not the first one we’ve seen,” Joan reminds him.

“I think I spotted the license plate. It said Wyoming.” He says.

“We’re in Wyoming–?”

“I’unno. Could’a been a tourist, could’a been a group like us, just driving nowhere.”

That’s true, she thinks, gauging where they are based on license plates isn’t the most effective way. It would be funny though, ending up in Wyoming. A month’s travel and they end up in fucking Wyoming.

The road continues stretching as the van travels along. A road sign directs them to an exit to a town about five miles ahead, and Joan perks up a little. Another place to stop and check for supplies, another place to put them in danger, it’s a high risk high reward situation when they stop. They’ve been lucky so far, but luck runs out, right?

“...Make this next exit.” Joan hums.

“Er, uh, was already gonna do that.”

“Cool.”

“Cool.”

Joan smiles to herself as Jack speeds the car up a little to pull into the exit, rounding a corner as the makings of some far off midwest town start appearing in the far off distance.

“What’re you planning for this one..?” JFK asks.

“I wanna look for a big department store or something. Maybe a mall, might be food still in there if it’s got a food court.” Joan shrugs.

“Gross, Joan, all of it’ll probably be rotted or, er, some shit.” He wrinkles his nose.

“What, it’s not like you care. The second week of this outbreak I had to watch you eat a corndog that had been thawed and sitting out for like, a week.”

“Joan–”

“Several corndogs, actually. Gandhi had to push your hair back when you started feeling sick in case you threw up.”

“Joooooan…”

“I think you ate an egg too, one of those prepackaged hard boiled eggs you get at a gas station or something.”

“Okay–! I have, eh, low standards with food, that’s well established by now, thank you for that.” JFK huffs, the corner of his lip twitching in annoyance.

“If we find a food court, anything that’s been sitting out, I’ll feed it to you first to see if it’s edible.” Joan snorts.

“...You’re so mean to me. Why are you so mean to me, Joan, I could die tomorra’ and you’d live with the guilt of bullying me.” Jack lays a hand on his forehead to exaggerate the dramatics of his statement. Joan shakes her head and laughs.

“You and I both know you’re too fuckin’ dense to die. An infected couldn’t even break the skin on your head, your skull’s so thick.” She smirks.

“Nope, I’ll, er, uh, die on purpose just so you feel bad for makin’ fun of me.”

“Jaaaaaack…” Joan whines.

“What? It’s a joke, I’m, eh, jokin’, I’d never do that to ya.” He waves a hand around defensively.

Joan shakes her head at him with a smile as she looks up ahead. She’s not quite sure what time it is, but the sun still has a way to go to raise, orange against the shadow of clouds across the stretch of plains. It’s gorgeous, Joan thinks, watching the glare of the sun beginning to shine into the van. She wishes she had her camera with her, something to make this last.

“Er, real pretty, right?” JFK’s voice is hushed as he leans in to Joan.

“Keep your eyes on the road, doofus.” Joan rolls her eyes.

“I am, I am, but I’m allowed to look, right? It, eh, looks right out of a painting. It’s nice. You like artsy stuff, yeah? I bet this would look, er, nice on a polaroid or whateva’.” He makes an attempt to understand her form of art. It’s a little funny, but genuine enough to make her smile.

“...Yeah. You’re right, actually, this would look great on film.” She grins.

He chuckles and leans back, eyes darting to the fuel gauge before looking back up at the road. The town up ahead looks closer, thank God.

“Eh. We’ll make it, I’ll refuel when we get closa’.” He shrugs, putting more pressure on the gas pedal.

Joan does an internal inventory stock. They need to find more gas, and soon.

An alarming couple thumps yanks her out of her thoughts, and Jack’s face drops as if his heart fell straight into his stomach. The van begins slowing, and Jack pulls the van to the side.

“Shit, shitshitshit– fuck, fuuuuuck, Joan– we’re fucked, we’re fucked–”

The van is parked and he immediately hops out.

“What’s going on..?” Cleo’s sleepy voice comes from the back.

“I don’t know. Something bad, um–”

Joan fumbles out of her seat and opens the door, staring up ahead. They’re at least a couple miles away. Shit.

Jack’s on the other side of the van inspecting the front wheels, and Joan makes her way to the front left tire with a concerned expression.

“The tires are fuckin’ shot, they got– fuckin’ punctured by something, god dammit, we only have one spare and two are busted, fffffuck–”

Joan’s eyes widen and she looks back from where the van drove. There, laid out on the street a good distance away, is a long sheet of metal with several nails driven into it.

A homemade spike strip. A homemade fucking spike strip.

It’s not debris, debris doesn’t just happen to land face up with several inch long nails just happening to stretch across a good portion of road. This was purposeful, laid out by a person.

Wait. Someone laid that out, someone willingly put down the strip in the first place, Joan thinks. If that’s the case, then–

A bullet whizzes past the two of them, and Jack stumbles backwards, clutching his shoulder.

Joan shrieks and dives down as another bullet hits the side of the car.

“Fuck– Jack– Jack? Kennedy, answer me–”

“I’m, eh, fine, good fuckin’ lord..!”

He draws his hand back. It’s only grazed the skin, but there’s still blood to show injury. Joan winces.

A voice hollers out from the bush on the side of the road, someone obscured by tall grass and debris.

“Empty everythin’ in yer car or I kill every last one a’ ya! You have– You have ten minutes before I start shootin’!”

God fucking dammit.

Joan moves herself to JFK, sitting him up to inspect his shoulder. He smacks her hand away, eyes downcast.

“‘M fine. This is nothing. Listen, we have to think of something, okay? Think, Joan, c’mon–”

“I’m trying, Jack–!” She whispers harshly.

The backseat van door on their side opens, and out peeks Gandhi with a terrified expression.

“Bros..?” His eyes are wide even through the magnification of the lenses of his glasses.

“Short stack–!! Listen, we’re, eh, in the middle of a pickle right now, jus’ stay calm.” Jack’s eyes widened.

“Is that blood?”

“Yes, but that’s not important right now, okay? Joan, Joan I think the only way ta’ get outta this is to kill him, man…”

“Kennedy, he _also_ has a fucking gun.”

“There’s a guy with a gun? Where–?!” Gandhi looks around nervously.

“Off somewhere in the grass…” Jack groans.

Gandhi’s expression hardens, and he briefly peeks inside the van before he fully slides out of the car and ducks down.

“He shot you, yeah?”

“O–Only grazed my shoulder, but I, er, guess.”

“That’s a no in my book, dude. I’m gonna find him. Nobody– Nobody fuckin’ shoots my bros. God, never thought I would say that out loud, but here I am.”

“Have you thought about saying that..?” Joan asks.

“I’ve had plenty of daydreams about saving my friends from bad guys with guns, they’re all very awesome and there’s this one where JFK kisses me afterwards, but we don’t have time to talk about that.” Gandhi hushes.

“...Dude–”

Gandhi puts a finger to his lips. Joan spots the indentation of something silver poking out of his jean pocket.

Slowly, the boy peeks over the side of the van, eyeing the grass up. His hand hovers over his pocket.

“...Hello? Did y’all not hear me? Come out with yer hands up and give me everything in the van–!! Now!” The man shouts.

At that point, Gandhi swipes the revolver out of his pocket and aims, flicking the safety off and firing into the bush.

It makes contact with a body. The man screams, hollering obscenities. Joan is completely and utterly impressed.

Gandhi moves the cylinder over once and fires again. It makes contact. There’s frantic gurgling, then silence. A man is halfway crawled out of a particularly thick bunch of grass, a hole in his arm and a hole in his neck.

JFK peers over the side of the van, withdrawing his hands from his ears, then Joan, who looks back and forth between Gandhi and the man.

“...Gandhi.”

“Yo.”

“When the fuck did you get a gun.”

“I’ve had it.”

“You’ve what–?”

“I found it on a body a while back. Fully loaded and everything, can you believe that?”

“Why have– Why haven’t you used it yet, or something? I haven’t seen you kill something once, dude.”

“Medics don’t usually have guns, I think.” He chortles.

Joan shakes the stunned expression off her face and looks at Jack, who’s hand is hovering near his injury.

“...The van’s wrecked.” His voice is quiet.

“What? No it’s not, Jack, I’m sure we can find a car and steal a tire or– or something, right?” Joan assures.

“No, no, we’re fucked man, we’re, er, totally fucked. I think we can use the spare and– and make it up ahead, but after that we may need to stop there for a while.” He sighs, sinking down to the floor with his head between his knees.

“Ffffuck, I should’a seen the damn thing, I should’a stopped, why the fuck didn’t I see it, man..?” He whimpers.

Gandhi perks up with a sympathetic expression, hopping in and out of the van to retrieve his medkit. He sits himself down next to Jack, placing a hand on his arm and squeezing.

“Hey, um, how about we don’t… worry about that right now, okay? Let’s save that for later, J-dog. For now, can I take care of that grazing for you–?” His voice is uncharacteristically gentle when handling the situation, and Jack looks up at him and nods.

Gandhi eyes up the boy’s shoulder and his face scrunches, humming intently.

“...Don’t think I can get to that with your shirt on, can I. Sucks wearing layers, right?”

Jack looks down at the red shirt he was wearing, then down at the thick long sleeved shirt he wore under that with a small scowl.

“You jus’ wanna see me with my shirt off. Fuck outta here, bozo.” He huffs.

“Hey, you can’t blame me! Also, the bacteria and stuff in your shirt could cause an infection if I don’t clean that up soon enough. A small price to pay to not be in excruciating pain, right? Unless, of course, you totally don’t want to move your arm, ‘cause it’s infected now.” Gandhi rolls his eyes with a pout, and Jack groans.

“God, alright. Yer lucky I look good with my shirt off, short stack.”

Jack sits up and peels his shirt off, then the long sleeved shirt under that. He’s careful with it as he peels his shoulder away from the sleeve, the fabric sticky with blood. The shirts are discarded to the side and Gandhi pops open the off white box of supplies.

“...Remember when I had to fix your arm when you got stabbed?”

“And you had ta’ realign my nose, yeah. I don’t think I could ever forget that much pain in my life, dude.”

“Yeah, dude, shit sucked. How is it always you that manages to get fucked up?” Gandhi scolds lightly, soaking a rag in antiseptic.

“I’unno. Big guy, big target. Can’t help that I’m, er, both hot _and_ a beefcake.” He laughs.

“You're kinda right though, homie.” Gandhi mutters, low enough to be nearly unintelligible.

“What?” Jack looks over.

“What?” Gandhi ducks his head, applying the rag of antiseptic. Jack yelps.

“Fuck–!! Warn a guy next time, wee fella, sheesh.”

Gandhi gives him an apologetic look, dabbing at the wound as the other boy bites at his knuckle to prevent further complaints from escaping his mouth.

Gandhi digs through the medkit for gauze and dressing, pressing the rag into the wound with one hand as he looks with the other.

“...You, eh, just killed a man, short stack.”

“I know.”

“Do you feel bad about it?”

“I… don’t know,” Gandhi’s mouth screwed to the side, disgruntled, “I don’t know how I feel about a lot of things right now.”

“Like?” JFK presses.

“Like, how we have to kill the infected and shit when they get close. Makes me think about how those are like, people, yo.” Gandhi applies the dressing to Jack’s shoulder.

“You start ta’ not, er, care when they’re foaming at the mouth and trying to bite you, I guess.” Jack looks off to the side, bottom lip pinned between his teeth.

“I know.” The shorter boy sits back on his heels, looking at his work and tossing the rest of the roll of dressing between his hands. “Can you move your arm? Try flexing.”

Jack moves his arm straight up with a wince, then flexes his arm, eyebrows knit together in discomfort.

“...I can, uh, move well enough. Thanks, big guy.” Jack peers over at his shoulder, then up at Gandhi with a smile. Gandhi’s eyes widen, and he looks away.

“Yeah, don’t mention it– you should put your shirt back on or something, bro.” He pushes his glasses back up, packing the medkit back up.

“Eh– right, yeah, uh– oops.” JFK chuckles, carefully pulling the short sleeved shirt back on. The long sleeved one was instead tied around his waist.

“I can try and help you with the tires, okay? Don’t put too much strain on your arm. Joan can help too, right?” Gandhi peeks over his shoulder. Joan, currently leaning on the van with her arms crossed, gives a thumbs up.

“Yeah, we got this. You said you only had one tire, right bro? We only have a little more distance up ahead until we can stop. We’ll use the spare now and see if we can find an auto shop there or something. It’s gonna be fine, okay?” Gandhi’s voice is as soothing as he could possibly make it, a juxtaposition that punches Joan right in the gut with surprise. The shorter boy cups the side of Jack’s face, who gives him a look.

“...Okay.”

“Okay. Good, now get up, I need you to tell me where you keep the weird car tools.” He pats JFK’s cheek and stands up, medkit tossed into the van as Jack stands, the pair circling around the van to the trunk.

Joan shakes her head, watching as they amble their way into digging through the back. She also stands to watch Cleo stepping out of the vehicle and beginning to make her way to the body of the man in the grass. Joan’s brow furrows and she moves around the hood of the car to intervene.

“Cleo–? He’s already dead, I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but…”

“Easy, Joan. If he’s dead, we take his stuff.” She shrugs.

“Isn’t that a little… like, disrespectful?” Joan asks, only mildly appalled.

“Since when do you care about disrespect? I’m gonna check and see what he has on him. You’re invited to come with, too.” Cleo rolls her eyes, apathetic to the situation as she strides down the small ditch and into the grass. Joan follows, albeit with hesitation.

The man wasn’t that far in, only about thirty feet or so away from the van. Cleo inspects his body first, feeling around for valuables. She picks up the gun he was holding, a standard handgun, and tosses it to Joan.

“Hey, shit– this thing could be loaded, don’t just throw things!” Joan hisses.

Cleo shrugs again and pulls his body away. Joan had never seen, nor expected Cleo to want to get her hands this dirty, but here she was pushing apart grass to search for the supplies of a dead man. A bit of pushing revealed a small concealed tent, along with the bare minimum of camping supplies. Cleo gasps with excitement.

“Joan, this guy was a total hobo. Gross, but he’s packing! Look at this, I think this is at least another week of food, easy.” Cleo smirks, clearing out the tent of food packaged in plastic bags.

Joan smiles, though it’s more as if her face twisted into an uncomfortable grimace. They were set on supplies, sure, but they were going through the tent of a dead man. Wasn’t that the least bit concerning..?

Cleo’s arms were swarmed with plastic bags and other various camping equipment, marching back up to the van without another word. Joan looks down at the handgun, then back to the man. She double checks for the safety to be off, then takes her leave.

Cleo’s already placing the supplies onto a seat in the van, and Joan opens the passenger side door to put the handgun in the glove box. Just in case.

The van shakes and jerks down, and there’s exclaimed shouts of victory from JFK and Gandhi from the other side of the van. Gandhi emerges from the back with a smile, nudging his glasses up.

“We got the spare on. I think we can make it to the next stop.” Gandhi smiles, hopping into the van. Jack tosses the tools into the trunk, then strides back to the driver’s seat.

Joan smiles shakily, the nervous feeling in her stomach refusing to settle. She swallows it down and sits, leaning against the frame of the door as Jack shifts into drive next to her.

“...I think we got this.”

JFK slams his foot to the gas pedal and the car jerks forward before he speeds off.

Joan knows enough about cars that driving on a flat could fuck up the rim of your car, or tear the tire apart entirely. It didn’t sound completely flat against the road, so it’s possible it still had air in it, but the thought of veering off the road or destroying the rim didn’t help calm her nerves.

There’s a rhythmic thumping and shrill metal scraping from the side of the car, and Joan looks up at JFK, who’s gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were turning white. He catches Joan’s gaze and gives her an easy smile, contrasting his tense posture.

It’s seven excruciatingly nervous minutes before they actually pull into town, and when they park in the parking lot of a church, Joan gives a heavy sigh and flops forward with her head in her hands.

“Damn–! We made it, everything’s, er, uh, good, we’re still intact… Joan, we’re fine, everything’s fine.” Jack assures her, a hand resting on her back.

Joan looks up and shakes her head with a weary smile, sitting up and pulling him in for a hug. He gives an alarmed yelp, but thankfully reciprocates it with slight confusion.

“Eheh… what’s this for–?” He asks.

“I needed it,” She replies.

“Fair enough.”

The two of them sit in silence, before Cleo gags from the back seat.

“Gross. Get a room, good lord.” She scowls, her voice surprisingly lacking malice. At least, Joan hopes.

“What, never experienced physical affection before? I feel bad for you, Cleo, I do.” She teases.

“Urgh, whatever. You guys suck. Are we done panicking for today? I wanna take a walk.”

“How are you the most unfazed out of all of us? I don’t think I’ve seen you worried once this whole time.” Joan chuckles.

“I can only assume the original Cleopatra saw some weird and horrible Egyptian wars or something in her life. I guess it’s in my blood to be accustomed to tragedy.” She smirks, picking at her nails.

“Sure, whatever.” Joan rolls her eyes, turning back to the front with an amused smile.

It’s a shame they can’t stay this at ease forever, really. Life doesn’t wait to throw things at you.

The rim of the car holding the tire had been screeching against the road every now and again, the thump of the tire only adding to the noise level.

Joan sometimes forgets how good an infected’s hearing becomes.

So, really, it shouldn’t be surprising when Joan catches a glimpse of an incoming horde beginning to swarm at the edge of a street. They swarm like insects or birds, bunching together for more sheer force to take down the prey. They pinpoint where a sound is, whether it stops or starts at a location, and chase it down.

That’s what the four of them are, what they’ve became, and what that fucking car rim has made them.

Prey.

Prey that’s being located by a slow moving hoard of infected, listening in, staring, frothing as it grows larger in size.

It’s nice they’ve parked in front of a church, because Joan has never genuinely prayed with this much fear and guilt in her heart.

Joan pulls her gaze away from the incoming horde and looks over at JFK, who looks at her with a confused smile.

"What's, eh, wrong? You look like you just saw a ghost. Or maybe some, uh, weird naked guy or whateva'." He snorts.

"Lock the car."

"What?"

"Lock the fucking car, John."

His eyes shoot open and does as instructed, locking the doors of the passenger and driver's seat door.

"Eh, Gandhi, could you–?"

"Got it, dude, no worries. Joan, what's going on?" Gandhi asks, reaching to lock the backseat van doors.

Joan looks back up to spot the horde. They're continuing to accumulate, trudging at a slow pace. Regardless of their speed or size, the horde seems like it's heading right for them, but not with any urgency. It's likely that they only knew the general direction of the noise they made, and not actually pinpointing. Joan sighs, swallowing the lump in her throat.

"Horde. A horde, coming right near us."

Gandhi goes silent, stiff with fear.

"Well– they don't look angry. Maybe we just wait them out like a storm or something." He suggests, a strained smile attempting to hide the anxious edge in his voice.

"...Good thinking. If we just sit it out, they'll probably walk right past us." She nods.

Joan maneuvers herself first into the backseat, then to the space of the trunk in the back of van. Jack follows behind her, squeezing through the gap between the top of the seats and the ceiling of the van and landing on his back with a thump. Cleo's already sitting back there, quiet with legs bunched to her chest and her arms folded. Gandhi immediately gravitates into JFK's lap, who doesn't seem to mind despite his previous complaints involving the boy.

Wait. Just wait it out, and they'll leave.

And somewhere close by, funneling from the window of an abandoned school, was the smoke of a campfire. The smoke of a survivor, alive and living, hiding out in a camp two floors above ground level.

But it wasn't as if they could see it.

She feels like everything is her fault again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oops 🕺💃🕺


	7. vii. washing machine heart.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> alternative title; last words of a shooting star.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments feed me

When you’re scared of dying, or if you have confirmation that you’re dying, humans react and cope in different ways. There’s some sort of psychology that goes into it, how when you finally get reminded that your mortal body is expendable, that not everything in your life is forever, that you don’t know what it feels like, you lash out. It’s fear, it’s anger, it’s regret and guilt, it’s the sinking feeling of limit, of time itself weighing on your shoulders. Death makes you crack. Death makes you spill.

It’s still one month and four days into the apocalypse, and Joan is slowly coming face to face with the writhing, angry, and stinking face of death.

Death comes in many forms for some people. Of course, it’s a given that her and her friends have already brushed with it. It never truly leaves people whole, especially considering they technically counted as some resurrected teenage mess of a historical figure. Death came in immolation, hot and angry and rushing in bright heat against flesh. Death came in toxicant, left in mystery yet running through a body with a relentless force of agony. Death came in assassination, three to the chest, one to the skull, both cutting the life of a man short.

It hits Joan all at once. How they’ve all tried to live up to the originals, how they’ve spent their entire existence trying to live up to idols, to icons, and how pathetically fitting it is for them to die at the hungry claws of infected, zombified crowds. Something common, something expected, just another number in the dwindling population.

Being set on fire doesn’t seem that bad right now.

The horde shambles forward, tripping over each other and sniffing the air like dogs. The trajectory is right for the van, and there’s too many for her to count. They move forward, on autopilot, listening, smelling the air with an animalistic glint in their dull eyes. There’s a few even on all fours, having been crawling along the ground with broken teeth bared and smeared in blood. Joan sits back down against the wall, ducking under the window as one infected turns its head to look in her direction. It must have been a jerk of the muscle, misfired pulses from the brain, something.

The others in the van were as quiet as they could manage, the only noises Joan was able to hear over the thrumming of blood in her ears being heavy breathing and occasional whimpers from Jack, who was covering his mouth with a force rivaling the current grip on the baseball bat held in his other hand, fished out from under the van seats.

It was a matter of time. Counting seconds wasn’t slow enough to make the incoming horde seem farther away. They were close enough to hear occasional screaming or gurgles from the horde and, given the size of that swarm, was very audible to those in the van. Pained screeches, grunts, and howling akin to that of an animal in distress strikes Joan right in the heart. The virus hurt people, destroying the ones infected, tearing apart their insides and making them suffer.

It makes Joan think of the ethics of the whole situation. Have they been alive this whole time..? They couldn’t have been, right? Was Abe still alive when he went limp in her arms? It’s a virus, a disease, and they’ve all seen how it had been spread. Jack said it came from the tap water. It had to have been put in there somehow, some chemical dump, some accident, maybe somebody dumped a body in a water tower, or--

Joan feels her blood turn to ice in her veins. Her existence was all probably some experiment, this was a given due to the fact that it’s not every day a clone is grown from a fucking tube and put into society as normal. However, it wouldn’t be too far fetched to assume that this, what they were going through, what ravaged the country and left it barren, full of pestilence and death in just one month,

It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to think that this was just another science experiment. That this was just something to put them through, some hell outside of human comprehension, to see just what would happen if the world would just collapse.

Joan digs her nails so deep into her palms she doesn’t notice the red seeping under her fingernails.

This is a sick fucking joke. A sick, cruel experiment. But maybe she’s just thinking too hard. This is her trying to find an explanation as to why her life fell apart at the seams, why God would have her suffer like this. Was this some sort of karmic payback for simply not hearing him?

Joan strains herself, tuning out the whimpering and fearful breathing and the _growling_ , and Joan tries, she really does, she tries listening for something, anything. She tries praying a couple of Our Fathers, ten Hail Marys, reciting whatever Biblical stories she had stored in the back of her mind from when she was a kid, when she tried so hard to hear him, to connect to him, only to get nothing. It takes another ten Hail Marys for her to realize he won’t answer, even now.

And she cries. She puts her head in her hands and cries, silently, hot tears spilling out of her eyes and pooling in the dips of her fingers. There’s an ache deep in her chest, something not unlike betrayal, a deep sort of hurt when she realizes that not even the big man in the sky could help.

She feels alone. She’s alone, and there’s nothing on the other side waiting for her. It’s ironic. She never really thought that heaven was a thing, that once you kick it you get thrown in some overly expensive casket and tossed underground to become another statistic and another set of words in the morning paper’s obituaries. When death is coming for her, again if you count her genetic mother, she desperately wishes that there was something. Some sort of freedom away from this living nightmare.

Perhaps death is heaven. A release, good or bad, to eternal quiet and unbothered rest.

Joan releases a low, pained whimper against the cushion of her hands and lifts her head to attempt to discreetly spot the horde. They’ve reached the church at this point, hobbling or crawling forward with a hunger held deep in their milky yellowed eyes.

Joan draws her arm across her face to wipe her eyes and nose, turning back down with a soft hiccup. A warm hand snakes its way around her torso and her first instinct is to flinch, but relaxes when her eyes trace the arm back up to the warm brown in Cleo’s eyes. Warm brown not encased in a thick yellow film, clean, human.

The girl pulls her a little bit closer and Joan doesn’t mind, moving over with as little movement to the van as she can to huddle in Cleo’s embrace and put her head in the dip of her collar bone. A month into the apocalypse and she still has the smell of that perfume she would wear daily, clean and sweet like citrus and vanilla.

The horde leaks into the parking lot, and Joan jumps when an infected bumps against the van. It rocks, and the infected responds by slamming its head against the outside of the van before moving forward. Joan hisses out a breath she didn’t know she was keeping. Cleo holds her a little tighter. Joan squeezes her eyes shut, tense against Cleo, who was keeping composure the best she could.

A sharp ‘psst’ catches her ear, and Joan looks up to spot Gandhi staring back and forth between Joan and something through the window. He motions upward and Joan swallows thickly, carefully looking upwards through the window of the van. Past the shambling corpses walking near the van in what she can only assume to be the hundreds, Joan tries to ignore an infected staring blankly into the window and instead focuses out into the limited view of the buildings visible.

The roofs of nearby abandoned local businesses, the road stretching from where they came, and what looked to be a large empty building not unlike that of a school. What catches her eye though, is the steady grey smoke spilling from a window on the second floor. It was steady and controlled enough to be from a campfire, Joan deducted, and that filled her with both the instinctual reaction towards fire, and the more overpowering hope of possible help.

It’s not as if the thought of them being hostile didn’t cross her mind. It just seems that, when in a tense situation such as this, you just get desperate for any help imaginable. She turns back around at Gandhi, eyes wide, and it seems that he caught the same scene as her, a smile starting to pull at the corners of his mouth. He looks at Jack, who looks at Cleo in return, who look up through the window. Soon enough, it looks as if they were wordlessly on the same page.

Several minutes seemed to have pass, however, and there was no sign of the horde letting up. It looked like they stopped all together, Joan thinks, like they lost the sound and simply idled until they picked something up.

It’s an accident on her part, though, what happens soon after the observation is made. She moves just a little bit too much, sits up a bit too quickly, and one of her knees brushes over and presses down slightly on an empty water bottle, sounding a small crunch that, if anything, had just sounded death and despair for everyone in the van.

When a fly enters the mouth of a venus flytrap. It only needs to trigger two hairs on the plant for the signal to be sent, and for the jaws to snap shut on the insect.

The plastic crunch of the water bottle was quiet. Quiet to the people in the van, as a noise like that could easily be ignored. Not now, though. Joan’s mouth goes dry as slowly, slowly, infected begin turning their heads to the van. It’s eerie, as they all begin to look in unison, eyes forced open by the sickly blinding film, bloodshot, yellowed pairs of eyes setting their sights upon prey.

Joan fucked up. Joan fucked up hard.

She’s already fumbling to find the shotgun when an infected begins yowling, screeching with a bloodcurdling fervor as it hammers its fists into the side of the van. It’s mere seconds before they start shaking and pounding against the vans in the tens, twenties, thirties, forties…

“Joan-?!” Gandhi hollers over the groans and gurgling outside. They’re rocking the van, trying to claw into the meat inside and Joan feels so _sick_.

The four in the van begin screaming. It’s the only logical thing to do in this situation, really, and the air filled with “we’re fucked” and “I’m sorry”s and “I don’t wanna die”. Jack and Gandhi have an iron grip on each other, hands holding each other like it’s the last thing they have left in the world, like they’ve already given up. Cleo doesn’t have time for that. She sits up and moves towards the front, to the glove box, and comes back with the handgun. She shoots Joan a look, one swollen with pure emotion with eyes on the brink of tears.

“...Joan-”

“You’re not fucking killing yourself you- you piece of shit, come on-!! Just- let’s think for- f-for a second-”

“There’s no more fucking room to think, Joan-!! I told you- I- I told you I-”

“ _Shut up, just shut the fuck up-!!_ ”

Over the screaming and teeth gnashing and groaning, JFK is practically bawling, voice lacking the heavy accent he so insisted on mimicking. His fist shakes against his head, dug in and tugging at his own hair.

The three look at him with wide eyes as he lets go of Gandhi, who’s hand drops disappointingly to his side, and Jack begins digging around the floor for something. It’s surprising when he comes up with a bottle of alcohol stashed off in a drink holder, a lighter Joan distinctly notes that she used when smoking the day before, and… Ponce’s jacket, still stained in old blood.

“...Jack?” Cleo asks, puzzled.

Confusion floats through the others when he starts tearing at his shirt sleeve, but Joan doesn’t register that. The window above her shatters, and several arms and hands begin flailing frantically, clawing, grabbing at her hair and face. She shrieks, voice raw as she pulls backward to avoid the broken, blackened teeth threatening to bite whatever skin was exposed. She stumbles back into Gandhi, and he yells in response. Cleo reels back and fires the handgun, two bullets directly into the face of two infected in question as blood spatters onto her face.

Jack is visibly startled at the gunshot, face blanking before shaking his head and continuing with whatever he was doing. He screwed the cap off the bottle of alcohol and, now with a decent sized cloth, he sticks the cloth into the opened bottle and moves to the doors of the van.

If Joan wasn’t completely reeling from shock at this point, her heart would have shattered at the realization of what he was doing. Gandhi put her feelings into words, though.

“ _Jack?_ Jack, what the fuck are you doing with that-? B-Buddy-?”

The jock is wordless, eyes squeezed shut as he shrugs Ponce’s jacket on.

“...Leather’s hard to bite through.”

“What-? Wait. Wait, no Jack, JFK, JFK please-”

Gandhi starts squirming, frantic, tugging on JFK’s arm, pleading, _begging_.

“Don’t you dare, don’t you fucking _dare do that to me you asshole_ -”

“They get distracted by noise-”

“ _Jack_ ,”

“I- You guys get to that building, yeah? Just-”

“I can’t lose-”

“I’ll try and get back, but don’t come lookin’ for me-”

“ _I can’t lose you, too_.”

Jack goes stiff, and Gandhi’s collapsed by JFK, bawling, whimpering, wracked with raw sobs. Joan feels scarily empty. Cleo’s resorted to beating the arms that reach in through the window with the back end of the handgun.

Jack turns his head back towards Gandhi, not even bothering to hide the grief etched across his face. His eyes are wide, bloodshot, cheeks stained with a flush pink and slick with tears. He looks scared, scared like a kid, scared like he was going to lose everything.

And he smiles.

He reaches a hand down, the one not holding the alcohol and rag, and he places a hand on the side of Gandhi’s face. He can’t make eye contact. Neither of them really can.

“...Keep the girls safe, okay? I’ll be back as quick as I can. I promise.” He leans down and plants a kiss on Gandhi’s forehead, light and soft, and Joan could spot the moment the smaller boy cracked, the moment he spilled over, the moment everything just stopped to process. He looks up at the taller boy, glasses fogged, and nods.

Jack smiles again and reaches back to grab his bat. He presses a fist against the handle of the van, and his shoulders shake as he hunches in on himself. Joan finds it familiar.

He doesn’t hesitate as he swings the door open, knocking back a few infected. He bounds out of the trunk of the van with a raw, scratchy yell, and several undead pull their attention to the boy.

“Come get me, motherfuckers-!! Yeah! Come get me! _Come and fucking get me_!”

Jack spins on his heels, yelling, whooping, hollering, laughing with tears streaming down his face and off the edge of his chin.

“Come get me! Come and fucking get me, you fuckin’ chumps! Hyehehehahaaaah! Come on-!!”

With enough attention on him, the boy smiles wickedly. He turns and faces Joan, Gandhi and Cleo, all with varying degrees of dissociative horror on their face.

His expression softens, and he lights the molotov in his hand before beginning to run the opposite direction of the van.

He’s fast, Joan notes, watching him bound away, laughing, weeping, and screaming to attract the attention away from the van. And it works, Joan thinks, it works, because there’s no heavy groaning or banging from outside. No, the infected horde had set their sights on JFK, and he ran, he fucking _ran_.

“Yeah! Yeah, come on! C-Come on, hahahaaaah-!! You watchin' me up there, eh? You watchin’? Yeaaahahahah!”

He’s rejoicing. He’s made himself a target and he’s _celebrating_.

Joan loses sight of him shortly after she hears the molotov go off, a crack followed by an explosion, and he’s still hollering as the horde relentlessly chases him down. He rounds a corner, and Joan collapses.

They lost him. They lost Jack. But he’ll be back, right? He promised. Joan looks down at Gandhi, unresponsive and curled up on the floor of the van, watching as the straggling horde members disappear as well.

“...We need to head in. Now.” Cleo’s voice wavers, cracking like it pains her to keep a straight face.

Joan sets her eyes on the abandoned school. The smoke continues blowing out without a care.


	8. viii. blue light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this feels rushed as SHIT so ill come back and edit this later if i feel like it . anyways shits going to Spiral

It takes a solid four minutes to rouse Gandhi enough to get him to move from his spot.

Joan can look into the eyes of her shorter friend and just know, just see that he’s completely shattered. There’s stressed stains of red against white as he rubs his fist against his eye, rimmed with tears. His bottom lip shakes along with the rest of his body, and Joan has to help him sit up properly to get up and out of the van. He looks broken. He looks desolate.

Joan’s heart is grabbed and wrenched with pity towards the boy, and as he gets out of the van, she pulls him into a side hug before peeking back into the van to look for her shotgun. She comes back a minute later with the weapon in hand and a handful of shells.

Cleo worries her bottom lip, fiddling with the handgun. The butt end of it is smeared in blood.

“...Sorry.” She mumbles.

Joan cocks an eyebrow up, puzzled, and Cleo groans.

“Sorry for thinking that I– should have offed myself when we were getting attacked.” Her voice is low. Joan pouts, hand ghosting the shoulder of the other girl before pulling away.

“...Hey. You don’t need to apologize, okay? Don’t.” The corner of her mouth twitches up into a smile.

Cleo’s gaze hardens, but Joan can spot the hint of guilt deep seated in her expression. She shakes her head, and turns upwards towards the dilapidated building. The smoke kept billowing upwards. Joan spots the glint of something, perhaps glasses, in the window, and her stomach jumps to her throat.

The building itself didn’t look that bad, but the atmosphere chilled Joan to her core. What was once probably a highschool was reduced to a husk, cold and empty against the dying population. She swallows thickly, peaking out at the direction Jack ran off in, before looking at the others and motioning to head towards the building.

It’s silent. There’s an unspoken, tense feeling running through the remaining three as they make the trip to the school building. Joan decides against attempting to call up to the window as they start off away from the van. That’s a deathwish. They’d better wait until they’re inside the building, she thinks.

Gandhi tugs on the sleeve of her hoodie, and Joan looks down at her friend. His eyes are still glossy, wide, yet tired. She keeps a hand on his shoulder as they walk.

“...You weren’t like this with Abe.” She notes quietly.

“I cried after he kicked it. When you were asleep.” He replies, voice hoarse.

“You love him, don’t you.”

“Who?”

“Jack.”

Gandhi’s silent, and his eyes drift to the floor. He doesn’t reply, but Joan gets the feeling of ‘yes’ from his expression.

“It’s– It’s okay, you know. He’s gonna come back. I’m sure he’s just leading them far enough away from us.”

He doesn’t respond. Joan doesn’t continue the conversation, instead looking over to Cleo. The girl worries her bottom lip as one hand clutches the handgun, the other occasionally meeting over her eyes to squint up at the building they were heading towards.

“...What are you thinking about?” Joan asks softly. Cleo glances back at Joan.

“Me–? I’m thinking about how on a whim this idea is. Are you that desperate for help, Joan?” She asks. Joan ignores the scrutiny in her voice.

“Maybe I am. Even if it leads nowhere, at least we can stop and set up camp in here. Beats sleeping in the van at least, right?”

“And stay in a town this infested with dead people? Pass. My money’s on the horde wriggling back here like some fucked up migration pattern. We check this building out, find Jack, then leave.” She huffs.

Joan sighs, weighing her options on whether or not to bite back at her. Then again, no less than fifteen minutes ago did she witness Cleo ruthlessly pistol whipping infected at an alarming rate, so meeting with the tail end of a handgun in the hands of an irritated Cleo didn’t seem like a fun way to go out. She holds her tongue and keeps moving.

They turn a corner at the end of the street and the view of the school building becomes more visible, now with the front accessible and the several metal doors swung open and kept open with bricks. There’s a thin metal wire gate that reaches Joan’s chest encircling the front and sides of the school, but it’s wide open in the front to allow passage through. The building looks almost similar to Clone High, one blocky U shape sat on the small campus.

Joan takes a quick pause to listen for anything. There’s faint groaning back in the direction from where Jack ran, and her gut twists into knots.

They’re silent, and the air’s heavy, suffocating as they near closer and closer to the brick building. Upon reaching close enough to view it with more detail, a sign in a parking lot next to the school catches her eye. It’s small, one of those signs with replaceable letters, and the black against white text says ‘SAINT ELIZABETH ANN SETON HIGH’. A Catholic school. Great.

There’s a couple cars parked in the parking lot next to the school, and Joan ignores the urge to loot them as she steps through the opening spot in the gate and towards the front doors.

“Hey– you guys should look around the first floor. See if there’s anything useful to take, I guess. I’ll check the second floor.” Joan sighs, running a free hand through her hair and tugging at the knots.

Gandhi looks unsure, about to open his mouth, but Cleo speaks first.

“You got shells for that gun, right? I think that’s fine. Just– meet us back here when you’re done, and if you take too long, I’m coming to look for you and to kick your ass. Got it?” She folds her arms, scowling.

Joan goes quiet for a moment, and just nods.

“I promise. You check around down here, I’m gonna see what the smoke is about.”

Without another word, Joan turns on her heel and enters, metal doors wide open behind her. Cleo and Gandhi hesitate, watching as she enters, before entering behind her and leaving for the left wing of the empty highschool.

Joan’s first greeted with an expectedly empty school, fake plants knocked over in the entrance and tiles scuffed by panicked black soles. There’s another doorway to the left wing of the school, and a doorway to the right wing of the school, along with a staircase directly in front of her that leads to the second floor. She sucks in a breath and starts up the flight of steps.

Her boots hit beige and green tile, echoing against the steps one at a time as she grips the handle. There’s only the sound of her, her existence in the space itself. The school feels dead. Each step makes her muscles tense.

She gets to the second floor, the staircase continuing to spiral up to what could be assumed to be a third floor. There’s a doorway to the second floor and Joan carefully nudges the metal door open with her shoulder, hands against her shotgun and ready to fire. The door opens and she raises the gun as she steps foot into the hallway. Nothing. Not a sound. Just the sound of her breathing.

The hall smells of smoke, faint, but enough to let her know of it. The second floor seems to split down in the same U shape as the building, with two large double doors in front of her. Joan turns to her left, then her right, creeping towards the right and peeking down that hallway. The smell is stronger down there. She worries her bottom lip.

A few doors are swung open as she makes her way down the hallway, steps light as she looks through each room.

The classrooms are abandoned, as predicted, lights off and smelling of stale air. She doesn’t bother with details, only briefly noting this wing to primarily be of math and science classrooms. It’s only when she gets towards the back of the hallway does the smell of smoke become enough for Joan to pinpoint where it was. A science classroom, desks pushed to the side, and a small campfire kept by the window near a couple of tents. Jackpot.

Joan nudges the door open, old wood creaking dangerously. She cringes, pushing the door open the rest of the way with her shoulder as her finger rests on the trigger of her shotgun.

Joan’s shoulders sag as she realizes that there’s not one spot of human activity here. It’s empty. Nothing but the remaining embers of a campfire. The tents look clean as she approaches them, like actual camping supplies, professional and expensive.

If there’s nobody here, then…

Joan peeks into one of the tents with the barrel of the shotgun, pushing aside the flap with it in case someone was inside. With the absence of a person, she moves herself in to check. A sleeping bag, clean and tucked away in the corner, a portable stove and, remarkably, a laptop, albeit turned off and closed. She bites at the corner of her bottom lip, stiff. This didn’t feel right. She needs to leave.

She backs out of the tent, a look of self guilt to the campfire before she groans. A red flag. There’s no room for help in a fucking apocalypse, that’s like, rule one.

A sound catches her attention and she looks out of the open window, eyes wide as she stands still. The droning buzz of groaning’s starting to get louder. Not visible yet, but it’s definitely close.

Oh god, where is he?

Joan instinctively freezes though, blood frozen to ice in her veins as the distant sound of people talking grabs her attention.

Cleo and Gandhi, probably. She’s probably taken too long, and Cleo’s bitched her way up to the second floor to get her.

She steps out of the empty classroom, gun casually at her side as she strolls out of the room. She already knows what to report back, too. Another false pretense. The people that camped there were probably dead, too, a bummer.

“Bad news, guys, this building’s a bust. Guess we’re heading out, if Cleo so desires, or whatever. Did you guys find anyth–”

That’s not Cleo and Gandhi.

No.

Joan’s face contorts into shock as she meets eye to eye with two men, one in a hazmat suit and the other suited with a gas mask.

She barely has time to pull her shotgun up into both arms when one man aims at her, her brain’s going too fast and she pulls the trigger at the same time and–

There’s a piercing pain that goes right through her side, blooming outwards the same time as the crimson that begins soaking her shirt.

The man that fired at her goes down. Right in the neck. Joan pants with a smile.

The other one says something to her, but she can’t hear it. Her ears are ringing too damn much. Her head’s pounding as she loads another shell into the shotgun, and her knees begin to buckle.

She almost falls to the floor, swaying and watching with dissent as the man in the gas mask leaves in a hurry down the flight of steps. The man on the floor’s dead. The heavy pool of blood around his neck makes sure of it.

Her breath is ragged and a hand flies to her side, and she only registers how much pain she’s actually in when she attempts to take a step. It hurts. It hurts, she’s broken out into a cold sweat and she’s bleeding and everything burns and it _hurts_.

For one reason or another, her head decides rest is the best option. Rest, somewhere darker and somewhere with no noise. Her head’s buzzing so loud.

Each step sends a shooting pain through her nerves and into the bullet hole that’s made its home in her side, thankfully not hitting her lungs, but just about near her ribs.

The shock hasn’t hit her yet. It’s probably the adrenaline that gets her to the double doors of the school gymnasium. She uses whatever strength she has to push it open, and no more than a few feet in she finds the nearest wall and collapses, sliding down with a hand pressed to her side.

It hits her. And it hits her hard.

Her body tenses and seizes, and Joan can feel herself start to cry before she even notices the pained sobs she’s making. It’s pinpointed right in her side and every move she makes, the pain continues coursing through her.

Her vision’s starting to blur.

She’s going to die here.

She’s going to die here, and–

That other man. He’s going to look for the others. She knows it, and it’s probably the shock and blood loss talking but god dammit, they’re in danger. She tries moving herself up, panting and sobbing, but she can’t. Her body won’t let her.

“Cl– Fuck, ffffuck, Cleo, G– haa… s–shit,”

They had to have heard the gunshot. They heard the shot and they’re coming to get her and bring her back to the van, they’re going to fix her and act like she didn’t end up leading all of them into a death trap.

A heavy sob wracks her body. She’s killed all of them. It’s her fault. It’s always her fault.

The original Joan of Arc led the French army in a victory at Orléans that repulsed an English attempt to conquer France. The original Joan of Arc led her people to victory.

How ironic. How fucking ironic.

She grits her teeth and tries one last time to move, dammit, _move_. Nothing. She’s too far from the door to use it as support, to open it and yell, nothing.

The blood against her hand is sticky, already starting to dry against her clothes. There’s still the warmth of injury against her palm that makes her feel sick.

Joan finally relaxes. She lets her legs go limp, and her head hangs as hot tears continue to streak down her face.

Black continues spotting her vision when the distant heavy thumping of running catches her attention through the heavy fuzz of her head and blood thrumming in her eardrums.

The running slows, and slowly, slowly, the school gymnasium starts creaking open.

Joan doesn't catch the figure. It's too much to move her head at this point. She does catch the ragged, heavy panting from them and the steady, gentle pat of blood dripping to the tile floor.

"...Oh– G–God, Joanie, I'm sorry, I'm s–so sorry–"


	9. ix. two slow dancers.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> last one's out.

Joan would have assumed that, by some will of God, she had started hearing the voices that the original Joan of Arc was so noted for. God had finally taken pity on her and sent her a sign that she hadn’t failed her clone mother’s legacy even further than she already did.

But no, that wasn’t a voice in her head. It’s a person. By God, it’s a person.

Cold sweat coats her face, and she’s shivering and burning up at the same time when the person shakily bends down eye level with her. Half lidded eyes gather the energy to open and look up.

They fade in and out of Joan’s vision, their voice lost in the overwhelming static of her head. A warm hand reaches for the one not cushioned against her wound.

“...Joanie. Joanie, can you hear me–? Hey–”

He shouldn’t be this worried for her.

“J–Jack–?” She croaks.

Jack’s face brightens up, and he nods fervently.

“Yeah– Yeah, good job, Joan. Listen, y–you gotta stay awake for me, okay? Can you do that?” His voice wavers.

There’s a long pause between them. Jack coughs. Joan looks him up and down and tries her best to smile.

“You– look like shit.”

He does, he really does. He looks banged up, scuffed every which way, blood soaking through some parts of his shirt. There’s a dried crust of blood running down from his forehead and over one eye, shut and bruised.

But he’s alive. He’s alive, and he’s sat in front of Joan like some kind of angel waiting to take her off to the next life. How quaint.

“Where’s Gandhi and Cleo–? They aren’t hurt, are they? Is Gandhi hurt? Fuck, please tell me he’s still alive…”

“He’s alive, and– somewhere. Fuck, they’re probably hiding out right now. I think– that dude with the gun is gonna get ‘em.”

“Joan, don’t say that–!!”

“Listen, it– urgh, it isn’t too far of a stretch. Either they’re being hunted down right now, or– or Cleo’s already gutted him. I hope it’s the latter. She’s– kinda hot when she’s got murderous intent, ghh–”

Jack smiles, shaking his head. There’s tears in his eyes.

“L–Listen, just– tell me something. Say something. Just stay awake, alright–?” His other hand migrates off his leg and goes to put pressure on Joan’s wound. She hisses.

“F–Fuuuuck– Um, my n–name is– Joan, I’m– I’m sixteen, I go to– to– Clone High. We’re in the middle of an apocalypse. I’m g–going to die.” She rasps, shivering.

“No–! No, you aren’t Joan, we’re gonna fix this. We– We’ll fix this.” He yelps.

“...You’re bleeding.” Joan notes.

Jack briefly looks down to his own person before looking back up and shaking his head.

“It ain’t about me, doll. K–Keep talking, okay? I’m sure Gandhi and Cleo are gonna find ya in tip top shape.” He smiles. He looks nervous.

“Why can’t you– find them yourself..?”

Jack goes silent, turning away from her, visibly worried. Joan knows what he’s thinking, it’s sat right in his expression and she chokes up.

_ He wants to be with me when I die _ .

“...Hey. Can– Can I sit next to ya?”

Joan can’t find the energy to say no. He takes that as an answer and sits beside her. He laces fingers with her free hand and squeezes, huffing with exhaustion.

“...I saw Ponce.”

Delirium. Maybe some grief induced hallucination. Ponce is dead.

God, why is she so negative?

“Really–?” She whispers, voice low and raspy.

“Yeah– I did. He said everything was gonna be fine, an’ I didn’t have to worry.” He recalls between coughs.

They sit in silence. The school gymnasium smells of stale air and the scent of freshly spilled copper. Jack’s labored breathing sounds off beside her, rough and exhausted.

The emptiness seems to engulf Joan. It’s just her and Jack, sitting in a room that collides against her vision like a wave and swallows her whole. With the blood loss especially, the cold tile of the floor seems to stretch on forever. The two of them in a gymnasium, empty, silent, apathetic to their situation, that could very well be a sealed tomb.

“I need to know– if Gandhi’s okay. He– He was so upset, Joan, he doesn’t wanna lose me. God, fuck, he looked so– so small at that moment, Joan, I feel awful–”

“...You love him, right?” Joan asks.

“Who?”

“Gandhi. You love him.”

The air falls flat as soon as the question is asked. Jack squeezes his eyes shut.

“...I think I do, Joan.”

Joan nods, eyes trailing off to the side.

Good. They need each other.

“...I’m cold.” She says.

Jack adjusts himself, sitting up and pulling himself into her side, slinging an arm around her shoulder. She winces.

“Better?” He smiles. Joan spots a thin line of blood starting to trickle out of his nose, trailing down, meeting with his cupid’s bow and top lip.

It’s not. She’s still cold.

“Yeah.”

They sit like that. Dirty, tired, coated with blood and injured. They’re a mess. They’ve been a mess. She should have known this would end up this horrible. They’re just kids, kids with a few guns and a van and luck that keeps them alive. Look at them now. Five turns to four, turns to three–

Jack coughs again.

“Something– wrong?” She asks, brows furrowed.

“Naw. Just the– air, I guess. Kinda dusty.” He shrugs, coughing again. He spits off to the side, head turned away from Joan.

Her face scrunches up as she squints at Jack, who side eyes her with deep seated worry. Her eyes scan down to his neck, to his arm, to his chest, to his stomach–

He coughs again.

When you fight tooth and nail in an apocalypse where a telltale sign of infection is a cough, you begin to pick up on things with the scrutinizing eye of someone who’s very life depends on one or two cues. The corner of Jack’s mouth is spattered with blood, wiped off to the side where it’s almost unnoticeable, if not for the tint of dried red against his face.

She catches something. Her eyes fly up to his collarbone, and a blood stained hand shakily makes its way up, tugging down the fabric.

There it is.

A sizable bite wound, red and still glistening with blood.

Joan doesn’t have the energy to cry anymore. She doesn’t react, doesn’t emote, only stares with darkened eyes as the static in her head punches her harder more than anything. Jack does, though, he reacts, and as soon as he feels the fabric pulled away from the bite he ducks his head and begins to sob, which finally managed to wrench Joan’s heart with pity and dread.

Joan says nothing. She can’t do anything, only leaning her head against him as he weeps.

“How many–?”

“H–Huh–? Joan, what do you mean..?”

“How many times did you get bit?”

Jack freezes, tensing against Joan. He hiccups slightly, sniffling. There’s so much regret in him, Joan sees it swimming against his eyes, regret and the childish look of getting caught, of something akin to a fear of failure or punishment.

“...S–Six. Six times. They– They hurt Joan, they hurt so much.” His voice cracks, and he shakily inhales.

“Joan, I– I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna end up like those things, Joan…” His voice comes out in a low whine, finished with a cough.

At this point, his eyes are both open. The one he had closed had already become that frightening milky yellow Joan had grown to detest. He turns away, ashamed, tense and ready to break at any minute. Six bites. Six separate bites. He’s fighting it off, he has to be, he has to be tired at this point if he’s simply not turning as quick as he should. Imagine that. The will to stave off an infection simply because you feel guilty for catching it.

“Hey. L–Look at me.” She nudges the boy, and his wide eyes turn to look at her. One a warm brown, the other a sickly yellow. If Joan had eaten today her stomach would have churned with nausea at the sight.

“You– You just gotta– hold out, okay? Don’t think of this as waiting around to die. How about we– we just sit and talk, okay? Get your mind off it..?” She smiles, tired eyes brimming with tears.

“You look like a ghost, Joanie.” Jack remarks, hand ghosting over the side of her cheek.

She feels like one, too. Like her soul had long since left her body, and her brain has yet to catch up. It’s a wonder she hasn’t simply up and died yet. Maybe it’s whatever grace from God that’s left over from her clone mother. How nice, the only time God would interfere with her life was when she was bleeding out in the arms of a boy. He fucking would.

“...Yeah.” She scoffs.

They sit like that for a minute, the quiet air only occupied by Jack coughing every now and again. Joan looks right into the boy, memorizing everything, holding onto whatever she can of him. Time is ruthless, and it has it out for the both of them.

“Tell me something, John.” Joan asks, voice faint as her head starts to spin. She’s so tired. The dark of the gym envelops her in all the right ways, but she doesn’t have the energy to yawn.

“Huh–? Like– Like what, Joan?” He asks.

“Something– Something nice. I just wanna– hear your voice for a bit, okay?”

Jack pauses, lips pressed in a thin line to stop a particularly wet cough. He spits blood over his shoulder and sighs, ragged and sick.

“Nice..? I can do nice, Joan. Er– once, when me and Ponce were jus’ kids, uh, it was fall, and– and you know how the leaves get all those pretty shades of red and orange? There were piles and piles of that on the street, ‘cause the neighbors raked them off their front lawns and stuff. Well– Ponce dared me to jump in one, so I did. Didja know people put cinder blocks in those piles? I, uh, jumped in one and got a nasty gash on my back for the rest of the month.” He finishes with a raspy laugh, looking back down at Joan.

“And– And there was this time when I dared Ponce ta’ stick his tongue on the school flagpole in third grade, that one winter when it was freezin’ out every single day. I had ta’ tear him off of it, and his mouth was all bloody, he got so mad at me Joan, I’ll tell ya–”

Jack cuts himself off with a particularly hard cough, coughing thick blood clots into his fist and wiping it down the front of his shirt with fear and disgust dug deep into his face. That fear, however, extends into a look of panic on his face as his eyes dart around, sniffling as blood dribbles down his top lip from his nose.

“Joan–? Joan, I can’t– it’s, er, gettin’ hard ta’ see– fuck– fuck, Joan, I don’t– I’m not ready, I don’t wanna die, ffffuck…”

Coughing turns to sniffling turns to crying as he covers his mouth with a hand to prevent himself from sobbing too loud.

“Joan, I’m real fuckin’ scared, I am. Is– Is Gandhi okay? And Cleo? They’re still alive, right?”

…

“...Y’know, I– I miss Ponce. I miss Ponce a– a lot. I won’t even get ta see him again, ‘cept in my head or whateva’. God, fffuck, Joan, it really hurts–”

…

“I need ta’ find Gandhi. Need ta’– let him know I’m alive. For the time being. That’s funny, right..?”

…

“J-Joan– everything hurts, everything hurts, oh fuck– I’m sorry, I’m sorry I sucked so bad, I– I’m sorry I wasn’t good enough as a team player or some shit, I’m sorry I–”

It’s so cold. She needs to sleep.

“I’m sorry I failed, Joan.”

Death doesn’t have to be violent.

Death is rarely ever as violent as people make it out to be. The interpretation of violence comes from the fear of limited time, the fear of expendable mortality. Death is cold, it puts ice in your veins and bleeds you dry, but death is warm and holds you close to comfort you, to bring you somewhere nice.

Death is an end to suffering, at the bottom of it.

So when Joan decides that maybe now is a good time to rest, when her body can give no more, when the hole in her side becomes as frozen as the rest of her body, when she’s in the arms of a friend who only wanted to help, who just wanted to survive–

She decides that it’s fine now to sleep. Jack is warm, he’s usually warm, and the contrast of his body heat to her pulls her into a foggy sleep that just feels right at this moment.

A single jerking thought briefly tugs at her, makes her heart drop to the bottom of her stomach, but it can’t stop the rest that’s soon to come.

She needs to apologize to Cleo.

For what, Joan doesn’t entirely know, nor does she attempt to think on it further.

She does wish it were her holding her, though.

It’s one month and four days into the apocalypse, and Joan dies in the arms of a friend.

…

“...Hey, Joan–? I can’t– really see good right now, but–”

“I just hope you’re happy. This– This isn’t your fault. I know you think this happened ‘cause of you, but… I know that we tried our best.”

“...”

“Hey, Joan?”

“J–Joanie..? Hey– wake up, Joan, come on.”

“...”

Jack doesn’t have it in him to cry. All he manages to do with what grasp on his body he has is to pull her close to his body, his chin resting on the top of her head as the siege of pain firing to his nerves eventually begins what follows soon after contracting the virus; in which the world fades into dim shapes, and slowly, his head fogs as the incoming tremors of a seizure pick up and force blood to spill out of his nose and mouth.

The last clear thought his consciousness holds is not a sentence, but something that instinctually sits deep into his emotions and thoughts.

He needs to find him. He needs to tell him it’s okay.

And Jack’s eyes roll to the back of his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and thats the end of the fic! i'll add more to boost the word count at some points but this marks the end. however i do have two minifics planned that go along with this au so please keep an eye out for that as i will post them as soon as i can!  
> you can find my ig at @catheartmac so go ahead and yell at me there


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